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THE   STORY   OF   THE   NATIONS 


I2MO,  ILLUSTRATED.       PER  VOL.,  $1.50 


THE    EARLIER   VOLUMES   ARE 

THE  STORY  OF  GREECE.    By  Prof.  Jas.  A.  Harrison 

THE  STORY  OF  ROME.    By  Arthur  Gilman 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  JEWS.    By  Prof.  Jas.  K.  Hosmer 

THE  STORY  OF  CHALDEA.    By  Z.  A.  Ragozin 

THE  STORY  OF  GERMANY.    By  S.  Baring-Gould 

THE  STORY  OF  NORWAY.    By  Prof.  H.  H.  Boyesen 

THE  STORY  OF  SPAIN.     By  E.  E.  and  Susan  Hale 

THE  STORY  OF  HUNGARY.     By  Prof.  A.  Vamb£ry 

THE  STORY  OF  CARTHAGE.    By  Prof.  Alfred  J.  Church 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  SARACENS.     By  Arthur  Gilman 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  MOORS  IN  SPAIN.  By  Stanley  Lane-Poole 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  NORMANS.     By  Sarah  O.  Jewett 

THE  STORY  OF  PERSIA.    By  S.  G.  W.  Benjamin 

THE  STORY  OF  ANCIENT  EGYPT.     Bv  Geo.  Rawlinson 

THE  STORY  OF  ALEXANDER'S  EMPIRE.  By  Prof.  J.P.Mahaffv 

THE  STORY  OF  ASSYRIA.     By  Z.  A.  Ragozin 

THE  STORY  OF  IRELAND.     By  Hon.  Emily  Lawless 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  GOTHS.     By  Henry  Bradley 

For  prospectus  of  the  series  see  end  of  this  volume 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS  NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 


I^he  feorg  of  tin  ^ntiom 


THE      ^'^^ 


Story  of  Ireland 


The   Hon.   EMILY    LAWLESS 

AUTHOR  OF  "  HURRISH:    A  STUDY,"  ETC 


WITH  SOME  ADDITIONS  BY 

Mrs.  ARTHUR  BRONSON 


NEW  YORK 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S   SONS 

LONDON:    T.   FISHER   UNWIN 

1888 


l^^7 


Copyright 

By  G.  p.  Putnam's  Sons 

1887 

Entered  at  Stationers'  Ha!l,  London 

By  T.  Fisher  Unwin 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 
New  York 


Co 

The  earl  OF  DUFFERIN,  K.P.,  G.C.B.,  F.R.S..  &c., 

Viceroy  of  India. 


Sgeul  na  H-Eireann 
DON  Eireannach  as  fiu. 


PREFACE, 


Irish  history  is  a  long,  dark  road,  with  many  blind 
alleys,  many  sudden  turnings,  many  unaccountably 
crooked  portions  ;  a  road  which,  if  it  has  a  few  sign- 
posts to  guide  us,  bristles  with  threatening  notices, 
now  upon  the  one  side  and  now  upon  the  other,  the 
very  ground  underfoot  being  often  full  of  unsuspected 
perils  threatening  to  hurt  the  unwary. 

To  the  genuine  explorer,  flushed  with  justified  self- 
confidence,  well  equipped  for  the  journey,  and  in- 
different to  scratches  or  bruises,  one  may  suppose 
this  to  be  rather  an  allurement  than  otherwise,  as 
he  spurs  along,  lance  at  rest,  and  sword  on  side.  To 
the  less  well-equipped  traveller,  who  has  no  pretensions 
to  the  name  of  explorer  at  all,  no  particular  courage 
to  boast  of,  and  whose  only  ambition  is  to  make  the 
way  a  little  plainer  for  some  one  travelling  along  it  for 
the  first  time,  it  is  decidedly  a  serious  impediment,  so 
much  so  as  almost  to  scare  such  a  one  from  attempting 
the  role  of  guide  even  in  the  slightest  and  least 
responsible  capacity. 


X  PREFACE. 

Another  and  perhaps  even  more  formidable  ob- 
jection occurs.  A  history  beset  with  such  distracting 
problems,  bristling  with  such  thorny  controversies,  a 
history,  above  all,  which  has  so  much  bearing  upon 
that  portion  of  history  which  has  still  to  be  born, 
ought,  it  may  be  said,  to  be  approached  in  the  gravest 
and  most  authoritative  fashion  possible,  or  else  not 
approached  at  all.  This  is  too  true,  and  that  so 
slight  a  summary  as  this  can  put  forward  no  claim 
to  authority  of  any  sort  is  evident  enough.  National 
"  stories,"  however,  no  less  than  histories,  gain  a 
gravity,  it  must  be  remembered,  and  even  at  times  a 
solemnity  from  their  subject  apart  altogether  from 
their  treatment.  A  good  reader  will  read  a  great 
deal  more  into  them  than  the  mere  bald  words  con- 
vey. The  lights  and  shadows  of  a  great  or  a  tragic 
past  play  over  their  easy  surface,  giving  it  a  depth 
and  solidity  to  which  it  could  otherwise  lay  no  claim. 
If  the  present  attempt  disposes  any  one  to  study 
at  first  hand  one  of  the  strangest  and  most  perplexing 
chapters  of  human  history  and  national  destiny,  its 
author  for  one  will  be  more  than  content. 


CONTENTS. 


Primeval  Ireland 


PAGE 

1-12 


Early  migrations,  i — The  great  ice  age,  3 — Northern  character 
of  the  fauna  and  flora  of  Ireland,  5 — First  inhabitants,  6 — 
Formorian,  Firbolgs,  Tuatha-da-Danaans,  6 — Battle  of  Moy- 
tura  Cong,  7-9 — The  Scoto-Celtic  invasion,  9 — Annals  and 
annalists,  how  far  credible?  9-12. 


II. 


The  Legends  and  Legend-Makers 


T3-21 


The  legends,  13 — Their  archaic  character,  14 — The  pursuit  of 
G411a  Dacker  and  his  horse,  14-18 — -The  ollamhs,  19 — Positions 
of  the  bards  or  ollamhs  in  Primitive  Ireland,  19-21. 


III. 


Pre-Christian  Ireland 


22-31 


Early  Celtic  law,  24 — The  Senchus  jSIor  and  Book  of  Aicill, 
25 — Laws  of  inheritance,  26-28 — Narrow  conception  of 
patriotism,  30-31. 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

IV. 
St.  Patrick  the  Missionary   ....       32-37 

St.  Patrick's  birth,  33 — Capture,  slavery,  and  escape,  33 — His 
return  to  Ireland,  33 — Arrives  at  Tara,  34 — Visits  Connaught 
and  Ulster,  34,  35 — Early  Irish  missionaries  and  their  enthu- 
siasm for  the  work,  35-37. 

V. 

The  First  Irish  Monasteries         .        .        .      38-41 

"  The  Tribes  of  the  Saints,"  38— Small  oratories  in  the  West, 
39,  40 — Plan  of  monastic  life,  40 — Ready  acceptance  of 
Christianity,  41. 

VI. 

Columba  and  the  Western  Church      .        .       42-49 

Birth  of  Columba,  42 — His  journey  to  lona,  42  —  His 
character  and  humanity,  43 — Conversion  of  Saxon  England, 
44 — Schism  between  Western  Church  and  Papacy,  45 — Synod 
of  Whitby,  46 — The  Irish  Church  at  home,  47-49. 

VII. 
The  Northern  Scourge 5o-S9 

Ireland  divided  into  five  kingdoms,  50 — The  Ard-Reagh,  52 — 
Arrival  of  Vikings,  53 — Thorgist  or  Turgesius  ?  55 — Later 
Viking  invaders,  56 — The  round  towers,  56-58 — Dublin 
founded,  58 — Hatred  between  the  two  races,  59. 

VIII. 
Brian  of  the  Tribute 60-70 

Two  deliverers,  60 — Defeat  of  the  Vikings  at  Sulcost,  61  — 
Brian  becomes  king  of  Munster,  63 — Seizes  Cashel,  63 — Over- 
comes Malachy,  63 — Becomes  king  of  Ireland,  64 — Celtic 
theory  of  loyalty,  64 — Fresh  Viking  invasion,  66 — Battle  of 
Clontarf,  67-69 — Death  of  Brian  Boru,  69. 


CONTENTS.  Xlll 

PAGE 

IX. 

From  Brian  to  Strongbow     ....       71-75 

Result  of  Brian  Boru's  death,  71 — Chaos  returns,  71 — Struggle 
for  the  succession,  73 — Roderick  O'Connor,  last  native  king 
of  Ireland,  75. 

X. 

The  Anglo-Norman  Invasion  ....       76-89 

First  group  of  knightly  invaders,  76 — Their  relationship,  76 — 
Giraldus  Cambrensis,  78 — Motives  for  invasion,  79 — Papal 
sanction,  81 — Dermot  McMurrough,  81 — He  enlists  recruits, 
82 — Arrival  of  Robert  FitzStephen,  83 — Wexford,  Ossory, 
and  Kilkenny  captured,  84-S6 — Arrival  of  Strongbow,  86 — 
Struggle  with  Hasculph  the  Dane  and  John  the  Mad,  87 — 
Danes  defeated,  87 — Dublin  besieged,  88 — Strongbow  defeats 
Roderick  O'Connor,  goes  to  Wexford,  and  embarks  at  Water- 
ford,  88— Meets  the  king,  88— Arrival  of  Henry  II.,  89. 

XI. 
Henry  II.  in  Ireland     .....       90-92 

Large  military  forces  of  Henry,  90 — The  chiefs  submit  and  do 
homage,  90,  91 — Irish  theory  of  Ard-Reagh  or  Over-Lord,  91 
— Henry  in  Dublin,  92 — Synod  at  Cashel,  92 — Henry  recalled 
to  England,  92. 

XH. 

Effects  of  the  Anglo-Norman  Invasion       .       93-97 

Effect  of  Henry's  stay  in  Ireland,  93 — His  large  schemes,  94 — ■ 
Their  practical  failure,  95 — Rapacity  of  adventurers,  96 — Con- 
trast between  Irish  and  their  conquerors,  96 — Civil  war  from 
the  outset,  96-97. 

XIH. 

John  in  Ireland       ......     98-100 

John's  first  visit,  98 — His  insolence  and  misconduct,  98— Re- 
called in  disgrace,  98 — Second  visit  as  king,  99 — His  energy, 
99 — Overruns  Meath  and  Ulster,  99 — Returns  to  England, 
99 — Effect  of  his  visit,  100. 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 
XIV. 

The  Lords  Palatine 101-106 

The  Geraldines,  loi — Their  possessions  in  Ireland,  102 — The 
five  palatinates,  103 — The  heirs  of  Strongbow,  103 — The 
De  Burghs,  104 — The  Butlers,  105 — Importance  of  the  great 
territorial  owners  in  Ireland,  105,  106. 

XV. 
Edward  Bruce  in  Ireland      ....  to 7-1 12 

Want  of  landmarks  in  Irish  history,  107 — Edward  the  I.'s 
reign,  107 — Battle  of  Bannockburn,  108 — Its  effect  on  Ireland, 
108 — Scotch  invasion  under  Edward  Bruce,  108 — Ravages 
and  famine  caused  by  him,  109 — The  colonists  regain  courage : 
Battle  of  Dundalk,  no— Edward  Bruce  killed,  no — Result 
of  the  Scotch  invasion,  in,  112. 

XVI. 

The  Statute  of  Kilkenny      .         .        .         .113-118 

Reign  of  Edward  III.,  113 — A  lost  opportunity,  114 — Duke 
of  Clarence  sent  to  Ireland,  114 — Parliament  at  Kilkenny, 
115 — Statute  of  Kilkenny,  115 — Its  objects,  116 — Two  Ire- 
lands,  116 — Weakness  resorts  to  cruelty,  117 — Effects  of  the 
statute,  118. 

XVII. 
Richard  II.  in  Ireland 11 9-1 24 

Richard  the  II. 's  two  visits  to  Ireland,  119 — Utter  dis- 
organization of  the  country,  1 19-120 — The  chieftains  submit 
and  come  in,  120 — "Sir  Art"  McMurrough,  120 — Richard 
leaves,  and  Art  McMurrough  breaks  out  again,  121 — Earl  of 
March  killed,  121  —  Richard  returns,  122 — Attacks  Art 
McMurrough,  122 — Failure  of  attack,  122 — Recalled  to  Eng- 
land, 123 — His  defeat  and  death,  123 — Confusion  redoubles, 
124. 


CONTENTS.  XV 

PAGE 

XVIII. 
The  Deepest  Depths 1 25-1 31 

Monotony  of  Irish  history,  125 — State  of  Ireland  during  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses,  126 — Pillage,  carnage,  and  rapine,  126, 
127 — The  seaport  towns,  128  —  Richard  Duke  of  York  in 
Ireland,  128 — His  conciliatory  policy,  129 — Battle  of  Towton, 
129 — The  Kildares  grow  in  power,  130 — Geroit  Mor,  130 — 
His  character,  131. 

XIX. 

The  Kildares  in  the  Ascendant  .         .  132-143 

Effect  of  the  battle  of  Bosworth,  132 — Kildare  still  in  power, 
132 — Lambert  Simnel  in  Ireland,  132 — Crowned  in  Dublin, 
134 — Battle  of  Stoke,  135 — Henry  VII.  pardons  the  rebels, 
135 — Irish  peers  summoned  to  Court,  136 — Perkin  Warbeck 
in  Ireland,  137 — Quarrels  between  the  Kildares  and  Ormonds, 
138 — Sir  Edward  Poynings,  13S — Kildare's  trial  and  acquital, 
140 — Restored  to  power,  141 — Battle  of  Knocktow,  142,  143. 

XX. 

Fall  of  the  House  of  Kildare    .         .         .   144-150 

Rise  of  Wolsey  to  power,  144 — Resolves  to  destroy  the 
^Geraldines,  144 — -Geroit  Mor  succeeded  by  his  son,  i45^Earl 
of  Surrey  sent  as  viceroy,  145 — Kildare  i-estored  to  power,  146 
— Summoned  to  London  and  imprisoned,  146 — Again  restored 
and  again  imprisoned,  147 — Situation  changed,  147 — Revolt 
of  Silken  Thomas,  147  —  Seizes  Dublin,  148  —  Archbishop 
Allen  murdered,  148 — Sir  William  Skeffington  to  Ireland,  148 
— Kildare  dies  in  prison,  149  —  "  The  Pardon  of  Maynooth," 
149 — Silken  Thomas  surrenders,  and  is  executed,  150. 

XXI. 

The  Act  of  Supremacy 151-15S 

Lord  Leonard  Grey  deputy,  151 — Accused  of  treason,  re- 
called and  executed,  152 — Act  of  Supremacy  proposed,  152 — 
Opposition  of  clergy,  152 — Suppression  of  ihe  abbeys,  153 — 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Great  Parliament  summoned  in  Dublin,  153  —  Meeting  of 
hereditary  enemies,  154 — Conciliatory  measures,  154 — Henry 
VIII.  proclaimed  king  of  Ireland  and  head  of  the  Church,  155. 

XXII. 
The  New  Departure 156-160 

A  halcyon  period,  156 — O'Neill,  O'Brien,  and  Macwilliam 
of  Clanricarde  at  Greenwich,  157 -Receive  their  peerages, 
157 — Attempt  at  establishing  Protestantism  in  Ireland,  158 — 
Vehemently  resisted,  158 — The  destruction  of  the  relics,  159 — 
Archbishop  Dowdal,  159 — The  effect  of  the  new  departure, 
159 — The  Irish  problem  receives  fresh  complications,  160. 

XXIII. 
The  First  Plantations 1 61-163 

Mary  becomes  queen,  161 — Religious  struggle  postponed,  161 
— Fercal  Leix  and  Offaly  colonized,  162 — Sense  of  insecurity 
awakened,  162 — No  Irish  Protestant  martyrs,  163 — Commis- 
sion of  Dean  Cole,  163 — Its  failure,  163 — Death  of  Mary,  163. 

XXIV. 

^~~Wars  against  Shane  O'Neill  .         .        .  164-173 

Elizabeth  becomes  queen,  164 — Effect  of  change  on  Ireland, 
165 — Shane  O'Neill,  165 — His  description,  habits,  qualities, 
166 — His  campaign  against  Sussex,  167 — Defeats  Sussex,  167 — ^ 
His  visit  to  Court,  168 — Returns  to  Ireland,  169 — Supreme  in 
the  North,  169 — His  attack  on  the  Scots,  170 — Sir  Henry 
Sidney  marches  into  Ulster,  171 — The  disaster  at  Derry,  171 
— Shane  encounters  the  O'Donnells,  172 — Is  defeated,  172 — 
Applies  to  the  Scots,  172 — Is  slain,  173. 

XXV. 

Between  two  Storms       .,.-..  174-180 

Sir  Heniy  Sidney  Lord-deputy,   I74^A  lull,   174 — Sidney's    • 
policy  and  proceedings,  176— Provincial  presidents  appointed, 


CONTENTS.  Xvii 

PAGE 

176 — Arrest  of  Desmond,  177 — Sir  Peter  Carew,   178 — His 

violence,  178 — Rebellion  in  the  South,  178 — -Sir  James  Fitz- 
maurice,  179 — Relations  between  him  and  Sir  John  Perrot, 
179 — He  surrenders,  and  sails  for  France,  180. 


XXVI. 
The  Desmond  Rebellion         ....  181-192 

An  abortive  tragedy,  181 — State  of  the  Desmond  Palatinate, 
183 — Sir  James  Fitzmaurice  in  France  and  Spain,  183— Nicholas 
Saunders  appointed  legate,  184 — Stukeley's  expedition,  184 
— Fitzmaurice  lands  in  Kerry,  184 — Desmond  vacillates,  185 
— Death  of  Sir  James  Fitzmaurice,  1S7 — Concerted  attack  of 
Ormond  and  Pelham,  1S8— Horrible  destruction  of  life,  188 
— Arrival  of  Spaniards  at  Smervvick,  189 — Lord  Grey  de 
AVilton,  189 — Defeat  of  English  troops  at  Glenmalure,  190 
— Attack  of  and  slaughter  of  Spaniards  at  Smerwick,  190 — 
WTiolesale  executions,  191 — Death  of  the  Earl  of  Desmond  and 
extinction  of  his  house,  192. 

XXVII. 

Between  two  more  Storms     ....  193-202 

State  of  Munster,  193 — The  new  plantations,  194 — Perrot's 
administration,  195 — Tyrlough  Luinagh,  195— Sir  William 
Fitzwilliam,  197 — Executions  without  trial,  198 — Alarm  of 
nortliern  proprietors,  198 — Earl  of  Tjnrone,  199 — Character 
of  early  loyalty,  200 — Causes  of  dissatisfaction,  201 — Quarrel 
with  Bagnall.  201 — -Preparations  for  a  rising,  201,  202. 

XXVIII. 
Battle  of  the  Yellow  Ford  .         .         .  203-205 

The  Northern  Black  water,  203 — Attack  of  Blackwater  Fort 
by  Tyrone,  203 — Death  of  the  deputy.  Lord  Borough,  203 — 
Bagnall  advances  from  Dublin,  204 — Battle  of  the  Yellow 
Ford,  205 — Defeat  and  death  of  Bagnall,  205—  Retreat  of  the 
English  troops,  205 — The  rising  becomes  general,  205. 


XVlll  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XXIX. 
The  Essex  Failure  .....  206-210 

Essex  appointed  Lord-Lieutenant,  206— Arrival  in  Ireland, 
208 — Mistakes  and  disasters,  208 — Death  of  Sir  Conyers  Clif- 
ford in  the  Curlews,  209 — Essex  advances  north,  209^Holds 
a  conference  with  Tyrone,  209 — Agrees  to  an  armistice,  209 — 
Anger  of  the  Queen,  210 — Essex  suddenly  leaves  Ireland,  210. 

XXX. 

End  of  the  Tyrone  War        ....  21 1-2 19 

Mountjoy  appointed  deputy,  21 1 — Contrast  between  him  and 
Essex,  213 — Reasons  for  Mountjoy 's  greater  success,  213 — 
Conquest  by  starvation,  214 — Success  of  method,  214 — 
Arrival  of  Spanish  forces  at  Kinsale  :  Mountjoy  and  Carew 
marched  south  and  invests  Kinsale,  215 — Attack  of  Mountjoy 
by  Tyrone,  218 — Failure  of  attack,  218 — Surrender  of 
Spaniards,  218 — Surrender  of  Tyrone,  219. 

XXXL 
The  Flight  of  the  Earls       ....  220-225 

The  last  chieftain  rising  against  England,  220 — Condition  of 
affairs  at  close  of  war,  221 — Tyrone's  position  impossible, 
221 — Reported  plot,  222 — Tyrone  and  Tyrconnel  take  flight, 
222 — Confiscation  of  their  territory,  223 — Sir  John  Davis,  224 
— The  Ulster  Settlement,  224,  225. 

XXXIL 

The  First  Contested  Election      .        ,         .  226-228 

Parliament  summoned,  226 — Anxiety  of  government  to  secure 
a  Protestant  majority,  226 — Contested  election,  227 — Narrow 
Protestant  majority,  227 — Furious  quarrel  over  election  of 
Speaker,  228 — Parliament  dissolved,  228 — The  king  appealed 
to,  228 — Attainder  of  Tyrone  and  Tyrconnel,  228 — Reversal  of 
statute  of  Kilkenny,  228. 


CONTENTS.  XIX 

PAGE 

XXXIII. 
Old  and  New  Owners 229-231 

Further  plantations,  229 — The  Connaught  landowners,  230 — 
Their  positions,  231 — Charles  I.'s  accession  and  how  it 
affected  Ireland,  231 — Lord  Falkland  appointed  viceroy,  231 
— Succeeded  by  Wentworth,  231. 

XXXIV. 
Strafford  .        .         .        .         ...  232-239 

Arrival  of  Wentworth  in  Ireland,  232 — His  methods  and 
theory,  232 — Dissolves  parliament,  234 — Goes  to  Connaught, 
234 — Galway  jury  fined  and  imprisoned,  230 — His  eccle- 
siastical policy,  237 — His  Irish  army,  238 — Return  to  England, 
238 — Attainder,  trial,  and  death,  239. 

XXXV. 

'Forty-one 240-245 

Confusion  and  disorder,  240 — Strafford's  army  disbanded,  but 
still  in  the  country,  241 — Plot  to  seize  Dublin  Castle,  241— 
Plot  transpires,  242 — Sir  Phelim  O'Neill  seizes  Charlemont, 
243 — Attack  upon  the  Protestant  settlers,  243 — Barbarities 
and  counter  barbarities,  244. 

XXXVI. 

The  Waters  Spread 246-250 

The  rising  at  first  local,  246 — Attitude  of  the  Pale  gentry,  249 
— They  resolve  to  join  the  rising,  247 — Disorganization  of 
the  northern  insurgents,  248 — Incapacity  of  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill, 
248 — Arrival  of  Owen  Roe  O'Neill  and  Preston,  249 — Meeting 
of  delegates  at  Kilkenny,  249— Charles  decides  upon  a  coup 
de  main,  250. 

^ XXXVII. 

Civil  War 251-256 

Effect  of  the  Ulster  massacres  on  England,  251 — An  agrarian 
rather  than  religious  rising,  252 — The  Confederates'  terms, 


XX  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

253— Glamorgan  sent  to  Ireland,  254— The  secret  treaty 
transpires,  254— Arrival  of  Rinucini,  255— Battle  of  Benturb, 
255 — Ormond  surrenders  Dublin  to  the  Parliament,  256. 


XXXVIII. 
The  Confusion  Deepens.         ....  257-260 

Total  confusion  of  aims  and  parties,  258 — The  "poor 
Panther"  Inchiquin,  258 — Alliance  between  Jones  and  Owen 
Roe  O'Neill,  259 — Ormond  advances  upon  Dublin,  259 — 
Battle  of  Baggotrath  and  defeat  of  the  Royalists,  260 — 
Arrival  of  Cromwell,  260. 

XXXIX. 
Cromwell  in  Ireland      .....  261-265 

Cromwell's  mission,  261 — Assault  of  Drogheda,  and  slaughter 
of  its  garrison,  261 — Wexford  garrison  slaughtered,  262 — 
Cromwell's  discipline,  263 — The  "  country  sickness,"  263^ 
Confusion  in  the  Royalist  camp,  264 — Signature  of  the  Scotch 
covenant  by  the  king,  284— Final  surrender  of  O'Neill  and  the 
Irish  army,  265. 

XL. 

Cromwell's  Methods 266-272 

Loss  of  life  during  the  eight  years  of  war,  266 — Punishment 
of  the  vanquished,  267 — Executions,  267 — Wholesale  scheme 
of  eviction,  268 — The  New  Owners,  269 — "The  Burren,"  270 
— Sale  of  women  to  the  West  Indian  plantations,  270 — Dis- 
satisfaction amongst  the  soldiers  and  debenture  holders,  271 — 
Irish  Cromwellians,  272. 

__.  XLI. 

The  Act  of  Settlement.         ....  273-276 

The  Restoration,  273 — Henry  Cromwell,  273 — Coote  and 
Broghill,  273— Court  of  claims  established  in  Dublin,  275 — 
Prolonged  dispute,  276 — Final  settlement,  276 — Condition  of 
Irish  Roman  Catholics  at  close  of  the  struggle,  276. 


CONTENTS.  XXI 

PAGE 

XLII. 
Oppression  and  Counter  Oppression     .        .  277-283 

Effects  of  the  Restoration  upon  the  Ulster  Presbyterians,  277 — 
A  new  Act  of  Uniformity,  277 — Exodus  of  Presbyterians  from 
Ireland,  278 — The  Popish  plot,  279 — Insane  panic,  279 — 
Execution  of  Archbishop  Plunkett,  279 — Sudden  reversal  of 
the  tide,  280 — Tyrconnel  sent  as  viceroy,  280 — Terror  of 
Protestant  settlers,  281 — William  of  Orange  in  England,  282 
— ^James  II.  arrives  in  Ireland,  283. 

XLIII. 
William  and  James  in  Ireland       .         .         .  284-294 

Popular  enthusiasm  for  Janies,  284 — Struggle  between  his 
English  and  Irish  adherents,  285 — James  advances  to  London- 
derry, 2S5 — Siege  of  Londonderry,  286 — Its  garrison  relieved, 
286 — Debasing  the  coinage,  286 — Reversal  of  the  Act  of 
Settlement,  287 — Bill  of  Attainder,  287 — Arrival  of  William 
IIL,  288— Battle  of  the  Boyne,  289— Flight  of  James,  289— 
First  siege  of  Limerick,  291 — Athlone  captured  by  Ginkel, 
292— Battle  of  Aughrim,  293,  294. 

XLIV. 
The  Treaty  of  Limerick         ....  295-298 

Sarsfield  refuses  to  surrender,  295 — Second  siege  of  Limerick, 
295 — The  Limerick  treaty,  296 — Its  exact  purport,  296 — The 
military  treaty,  297 — Departure  of  the  exiles,  298. 

XLV, 

The  Penal  Code      ......  299-306 

A  new  century  and  new  fortunes,  299 — Mr.  Lecky's  "  Eigh- 
teenth Century,"  300 — Reversal  of  all  the  recent  Acts,  300 — 
The  Penal  Code,  301 — Burke's  description  of  it,  302 — How 
evaded,  303 — Its  effects  upon  Protestants  and  Catholics, 
304-306. 

XLVI. 

The  Commercial  Code       ....         307-310 

The   "  Protestant  Ascendency,"  307 — England's  jealousy  of 


XXU  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

her  Colonists,   308 — Act  passed  prohibiting  export  of  Irish 
woollen  goods,  309 — Effects  of  the  Act  upon  Ireland,  309 — 
Smuggling  on  an  immense  scale,  309 — Collapse  of  industry, 
310 — Strained  relations,  310. 

XLVII. 
MOLYNEUX   AND    SwiFT  .  .  .  .  311-319 

The  "  Ingenious  Molyneux,"  311 — Irish  naturalists,  312 — 
Molyneux's  "  Case  of  Ireland,"  313 — Effect  of  its  publication, 
315 — Death  of  Molyneux,  315 — Dean  Swift,  315 — His  posi- 
tion in  Irish  politics,  315 — The  "  Drapier  Letters,"  317 — 
Their  line  of  attack,  318 — Effect  on  popular  opinion,  318 — 
Wood's  halfpence  suspended,  318. 


XLVIIL 
Henry  Flood 320-327 

Forty  dull  years,  320 — Parliamentary  abuses,  322 — Charles 
Lucas,  322 — Flood  enters  Parliament,  323 — His  struggle  with 
the  Government,  325 — Lord  Townsend  recalled,  325 — Flood 
accepts  office,  326 — Effect  of  that  acceptance,  326 — Rejoins 
the  Liberal  side,  326 — Tries  to  outbid  Grattan,  326 — Failure 
and  end,  327. 

XLIX. 
Henry  Grattan 328-333 

Unanimity  of  opinion  about  Grattan,  32S— His  character,  328 
— Enters  Parliament,  330— The  "Declaration  of  Rights," 
330 — Carried  by  the  Irish  Parliament,  330 — Declaratory  Act 
of  George  I.  repealed,  331 — A  spell  of  prosperity,  331 — Rocks 
ahead,  332 — Disaster  following  disaster,  332 — Grattan  and  the 
Union,  332 — Grattan's  death,  333. 


The  Irish  Volunteers       ,        .        .        .        334-340 

Revolt  of  the  American  Colonies,  334 — Its  effect  on  Ireland, 
334 — Disastrous  condition  of  the  country,  335 — Volunteer 
movement  begun  in  Belfast,  336 — Rapid  popularity,  336 — Its 
effect  upon  politics,  338 — Free  Trade,  338— Declaratory  Act 
repealed,  338 — The  Volunteers  disband,  340. 


CONTENTS.  xxill 

PAGE 

LI. 

Danger  Signals 341-346 

Reform  the  crying  necessity  of  the  hour,  341 — Corruption 
steadily  increasing,  341 — Attempt  to  obtain  free  importation 
of  goods  to  England,  342 — Its  failure,  342 — Disturbed  state  of 
the  country,  344 — Its  causes,  344 — "White  boys,"  "Oak 
boys,"  and  "Steel  boys,"  344,  345 — Faction  war  in  the  North, 
345 — Orange  lodges,  345 — "  Society  of  United  Irishmen,"  346 
— The  one  hope  for  the  future,  346. 

LI  I. 
The  Fitzwilliam  Disappointment      .         .        347-353 

General  desire  for  Catholic  Emancipation,  347 — Lord  Shef- 
field's evidence,  347 — The  Catholic  delegates  received  by  the 
king,  349 — Lord  Fitzwilliam  sent  as  Lord- Lieutenant,  350 — 
Popular  enthusiasm,  350 — Recalled,  351 — Result  of  his  recall, 
352,  353. 

LIIL 
'Ninety-eight 354-366 

Wolfe  Tone,  his  character  and  autobiography,  354 — The  other 
leaders  of  the  rebellion,  354 — England  and  France  at  war, 
355 — Hoche's  descent,  355 — Panic,  357 — Habeas  Corpus  Act 
suspended,  357 — Misconduct  of  soldiers,  359 — Arrest  of  Lord 
Edward  Fitzgerald,  361 — Outbreak  of  the  rebellion,  361  — 
The  rising  in  Wexford,  362 — Bagenal  Harvey,  363 — Arklow, 
New  Ross,  and  Vinegar  Hill,  363 — Suppression  of  the  rebel- 
lion, 364 — Final  incidents,  365 — Death  of  Wolfe  Tone,  366. 

LIV. 
The  Union 367-376 

State  of  Ireland  after  the  rebellion,  367,  368 — Pitt  resolved 
to  pass  the  Union,  370 — Inducements  offered,  370 — Dis- 
crepancy of  statements  upon  the  subject,  371 — Bribery  or 
not  bribery  ?  372 — Lord  Cornwallis  and  Lord  Castlereagh,  373 
— The  Union  carried,  375. 


XXIV  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

LV. 
O'CONNELL   AND    CaTHOLIC    EMANCIPATION    .  377-389 

The  Union  not  followed  by  union,  277— The  Emmett  out- 
break, 377 — Young  Daniel  O'Connell,  379 — The  new  Catholic 
Association,  380 — The  Clare  election,  381 — Catholic  Relief 
Bill  carried,  381 — The  "Incarnation  of  a  people,"  383 — 
Repeal,  384 — The  O'Connell  gatherings,  386 — The  meeting 
proclaimed  at  Clontarf,  387 — Prosecution  and  condemnation 
of  O'Connell,  387 — Released  on  appeal,  387 — Never  regained 
his  power,  388 — Despondency  and  death,  388,  389. 

LVI. 
"Young  Ireland" 390-395 

"The  Nation,"  390 — Sir  C.  Gavan  Duffy,  390  —  Thomas 
Davis,  390 — Smith  O'Brien,  391 — Effect  of  O'Connell's  death 
on  the  "  Young  Ireland  "  party,  392 — ^James  Lalor,  393 — -His 
influence  on  Mitchell,  393 — The  "  United  Irishmen  "  news- 
paper started,  394 — Arrest  and  transportation  of  Mitchell,  394 
— The  end  of  the  "  Young  Ireland  "  movement,  395. 

LVII. 
The  Famine 396-402 

First  symptoms  of  the  potato  disease,  396 — The  fatal  night, 
396 — Beginning  of  Famine,  397 — Rapid  mortality,  397 — Mr. 
Forster's  reports,  398 — Relief  works,  399 — Soup  kitchens,  399 
— Failure  of  preventive  measures,  399 — Famine  followed  by 
ruin,  400 — Clearances  and  Emigration,  401 — Emigrant  ships, 
401 — Permanent  effects  of  the  Famine  on  Ireland,  402. 

LVIII. 
The  Latest  Development  ....        403-416 

Encumbered  Estates  Act,  403 — Tenant  League  of  North  and 
South,  403 — The  "Brass  Band,"  404— A  lull,  404— The 
Phoenix  organization,  404 — The  Fenian  "scare,"  405 — Rescue 
of  Fenian  prisoners  at  Manchester,  405 — The  Clerkenwell 
explosion,  406 — The  Irish  Church  Act,  406,  407 — The  Irish 


CONTENTS.  XXV 

PAGE 

Land  Act  of  1870,  407 — Failure  of  Irish  Education  Act,  and 
retirement  of  the  Liberals,  408— Mr.  Butt  and  Mr.  Parnell, 
408 — The  Land  League  established,  409 — Return  of  the 
Liberals  to  power,  409 — The  Irish  Land  Act  of  1881,  410 — 
Arrest  and  release  of  Land  League  Leaders,  411— Murders  in 
the  Phoenix  Park,  411 — James  Carey,  412 — His  death,  412 — 
The  agrarian  struggle,  413 — Home  Rule,  414 — Its  eventual 
destiny,  414 — The  untravelled  Future,  416. 

LIX. 
Conclusion 417-419 

Irish  heroes,  417 — Causes  of  their  want  of  popularity,  418 — 
Irish  versus  Scotch  heroes,  418 — "  Prince  Posterity,"  419. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


[Nearly  all  the  archreological  illustrations  in  this  volume  are  from 
"The  Early  Christian  Architecture  of  Ireland,"  by  Miss  M.  Stokes, 
who  has  kindly  allowed  them  to  be  reproduced.  The  portraits  are 
chiefly  from  engravings,  &c.,  kept  in  the  Prints  Room  of  the  British 
Museum.] 


HOLY  ISLAND,   LOUGH  DERG      . 

MAP   OF   IRELAND   IN   REIGN   OF   HENRY  VII. 

CROSS   IN   CEMETERY   OF  TEMPUL    BRECCAN 

WEST  CROSS,  MONASTERBOICE   . 

DOORWAY  OF  MAGHERA  CHURCH 

KILBANNON   TOWER     . 

KELLS  ROUND  TOWER 

BASE  OF  TUAM  CROSS 

DOORWAY  OF  KILLESHIN  CHURCH 

INTERIOR  OF  CORMAC'S  CHAPEL   (CASHEL) 

WEST  FRONT  OF   ST.   CRONAN'S  CHURCH  . 

WEST  DOORWAY  OF   FRESHFORD  CHURCH 

SIR  HENRY  SIDNEY  (PORTRAIT  OF)  . 


PAGE 

Frontispiece 
134 
39 


SI 
54 
57 
62 

65 
72 

n 
80 

175 


XXviii  LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 

ASKEATON  CASTLE 

CATHERINE,  THE   "  OLD  "  COUNTESS   OF  DESMOND 
SIR  JOHN  PERROT   (PORTRAIT   OF)     . 

CAHIR  CASTLE  (iN    1 599) 

CAPTURE  OF  THE  EARL  OF  ORMOND   BY  THE  O'MORES 
IRELAND    IN   THE   REIGN   OF  JAMES    I.         .  .  . 

THOMAS   WENTWORTH,    EARL   OF    STRAFFORD,    164I 
ARCHBISHOP  USSHER   (PORTRAIT  OF)  .  .  . 

JAMES,   DUKE  OF  ORMOND   (PORTRAIT  OF) 
HENRY  CROMWELL  (PORTRAIT  OF)     . 

"  TIGER  "  ROCHE 

DEAN    SWIFT    (PORTRAIT   OF) 

PHILIP,    EARL   OF  CHESTERFIELD    (PORTRAIT   OF)      . 

RIGHT   HON.    HENRY   FLOOD    (PORTRAIT   OF)       . 

RIGHT   HON.    HENRY   GRATTAN,    M.P.    (PORTRAIT   OF) 

JAMES  CAULFIELD,  EARL  OF  CHARLEMONT  (PORTRAIT  OF 

RIGHT   HON,    EDMUND    BURKE   (PORTRAIT   OF) 

THE   EARL   OF   MOIRA   ("  A    MAN   OF   IMPORTANCE ") 

RIGHT   HON.    EDMUND    BURKE    (SKETCH    FROM   LIFE) 

THEOBALD    WOLFE   TONE   (PORTRAIT   OF)  , 

LORD    EDWARD    FITZGERALD   (PORTRAIT   OF) 

THE   FOUR   COURTS,   DUBLIN 

MARQUIS  CORNWALLIS  (PORTRAIT  OF)      . 

ROBERT   EMMETT   (PORTRAIT   OF) 

DANIEL   O'CONNELL,    M.P.    (SKETCH   OF)      . 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS.  XX ix 

LESSER  ILLUSTRATIONS  (at  end  of  chapters). 

PAGE 

CROMLECH  ON  HOWTH 12 

MOUTH  OF  SEPULCHRAL  CHAMBER  AT  DOWTH       .  .         31 

ST.  Kevin's  church 41 

CORMAC'S  CHAPEL  AND  ROUND  TOWER            .           .           .  70 

ROUND  TOWER  AT  DEVENISH 75 

SOUTH   WINDOW  OF  ST.  CAEMIN's  CHURCH     ...  89 

FIGURES  ON  KILCARN  FONT 97 

TRIM    CASTLE .  .112 

FIGURES  ON  KILCARN  FONT      ....       131  AND  150 

INITIAL  LETTER  (fROM  THE  BOOK  OF  KELLs)        .           .  160 

ST.  Patrick's  bell 173 

INITIAL  letter  (fROM  THE  BOOK  OF  KELLs)        .  .  202 

cinerary  URN 210 

TARA  BROOCH 219 

DOORWAY  OF  ST.  CAEMIN's  CHURCH  •  .225 

SHRINE  OF  ST.  PATRICK'S  BELL 239 

ST.  COLUMBA's  ORATORY 265 

INITIAL  LETTER  (fROM  THE  BOOK  OF  KELLs)       .  .  294 

CRYPT  OF  CHRIST  CHURCH  CATHEDRAL         .  .  .  376 


^ 


THE  STORY  OF    IRELAND. 


I. 


PRIMEVAL  IRELAND. 


"  It  seems  to  be  certain,"  says  the  Abbe  McGeo- 
ghehan,  "that  Ireland  continued  uninhabited  from 
the  Creation  to  the  Deluge."  With  this  assurance  to 
help  us  on  our  onward  way  I  may  venture  to  supple- 
ment it  by  saying  that  little  is  known  about  the 
first,  or  even  about  the  second,  third,  and  fourth  suc- 
cession of  settlers  in  Ireland.  At  what  precise  period 
what  is  known  as  the  Scoto-Celtic  branch  of  the  great 
Aryan  stock  broke  away  from  its  parent  tree,  by  what 
route  its  migrants  travelled,  in  what  degree  of  con- 
sanguinity it  stood  to  the  equally  Celtic  race  or  races 
of  Britain,  what  sort  of  people  inhabited  Ireland 
previous  to  the  fir.st  Aryan  invasion — all  this  is  in  the 
last  degree  uncertain,  though  that  it  was  inhabited  by 
some  race  or  races  outside  the  limits  of  that  greatest 
of  human  groups  seems  from  ethnological  evidence 
to  be  perfectly  clear. 

When   first   it  dawns  upon  us  through  that   thick 


2  PRIMEVAL   IRELAND. 

darkness  which  hangs  about  the  birth  of  all  countries 
— whatever  their  destiny — it  was  a  densely  wooded 
and  scantily  peopled  island  "  lying  a-loose,"  as  old 
Campion,  the  Elizabethan  historian,  tells  us,  "  upon 
the  West  Ocean,"  though  his  further  assertion  that 
"  in  shape  it  resembleth  an  egg,  plain  on  the  sides, 
and  not  reaching  forth  to  the  sea  in  nooks  and 
elbows  of  Land  as  Brittaine  doeth  " — cannot  be  said 
to  be  quite  geographically  accurate — the  last  part  of 
the  description  referring  evidently  to  the  east  coast, 
the  only  one  with  which,  like  most  of  his  country- 
men, he  was  at  that  time  familiar. 

Geographically,  then,  and  topographically  it  was 
no  doubt  in  much  the  same  state  as  the  greater  part 
of  it  remained  up  to  the  middle  or  end  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  a  wild,  tangled,  roadless  land,  that  is 
to  say,  shaggy  with  forests,  abounding  in  streams, 
abounding,  too,  in  lakes — far  more,  doubtless,  than 
at  present,  drainage  and  other  causes  having  greatly 
reduced  their  number — with  rivers  bearing  the  never- 
failing  tribute  of  the  skies  to  the  sea,  yet  not  so 
thoroughly  as  to  hinder  enormous  districts  from  re- 
maining in  a  swamped  and  saturated  condition,  given 
up  to  the  bogs,  which  even  at  the  present  time  are 
said  to  cover  nearly  one-sixth  of  its  surface. 

This  superfluity  of  bogs  seems  always  in  earlier 
times  to  have  been  expeditiously  set  down  by  all 
historians  and  agriculturists  as  part  of  the  general 
depravity  of  the  Irish  native,  who  had  allowed  his 
good  lands," — doubtless  for  his  own  mischievous  plea- 
sure— to  run  to  waste ;  bogs  being  then  supposed  to 
differ  from  other  lands  only  so  far  as  they  were  made 


GEOGRAPHY   AND    TOPOGRAPHY.  3 

"waste  and  barren  by  superfluous  moisture."  About 
the  middle  of  last  century  it  began  to  be  perceived 
that  this  view  of  the  matter  was  somewhat  inade- 
quate ;  the  theory  then  prevailing  being  that  bogs 
owed  their  origin  not  to  water  alone,  but  to  the 
destruction  of  woods,  whose  remains  are  found  im- 
bedded in  them — a  view  which  held  good  for  another 
fifty  or  sixty  years,  until  it  was  in  its  turn  effectually 
disposed  of  by  the  report  of  the  Bogs  Commission  in 
18 10,  when  it  was  proved  once  for  all  that  it  was  to 
the  growth  of  sphagnums  and  other  peat-producing 
mosses  they  were  in  the  main  due — a  view  which  has 
never  since  been  called  in  question. 

A  great  deal,  however,  had  happened  to  Ireland 
before  the  bogs  began  to  grow  on  it  at  all.  It  had — to 
speak  only  of  some  of  its  later  vicissitudes — been  twice 
at  least  united  to  England,  and  through  it  with  what 
we  now  know  as  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  twice 
severed  from  it  again.  It  had  been  exposed  to  a  cold 
so  intense  as  to  bleach  off  all  life  from  its  surface, 
utterly  depriving  it  of  vegetation,  and  grinding  the 
mountains  down  to  that  scraped  bun -like  outline 
which  so  many  of  them  still  retain  ;  had  covered  the 
whole  country,  highlands  and  lowlands  alike,  with  a 
dense  overtoppling  cap  of  snow,  towering  often  thou- 
sands of  feet  above  the  present  height  of  the  moun- 
tains, from  which  "central  silence"  the  glaciers  crept 
sleepily  down  the  ravines  and  valleys,  eating  their 
way  steadily  seaward,  and  leaving  behind  them 
moraines  to  mark  their  passage,  leaving  also  longi- 
tudinal scratches,  cut,  as  a  diamond  cuts  glass,  upon 
the  rocks,   as  may   be  seen    by  any  one  who  takes 


4  PRIMEVAL   IRELAND. 

the  trouble  of  looking  for  them ;  finally  reaching 
the  sea  in  a  vast  sloping  plateau  which  pushed  its 
course  steadily  onward  until  its  further  advance  was 
overborne  by  the  buoyancy  of  the  salt  water,  the 
ends  breaking  off,  as  the  Greenland  glaciers  do  to- 
day,- into  huge  floating  icebergs,  which  butted  against 
one  another,  jammed  up  all  the  smaller  bays  and 
fiords ;  were  carried  in  again  and  again  on  the 
rising  tide  ;  rolled  hither  and  thither  like  so  many 
colossal  ninepins  ;  played,  in  short,  all  the  old  rough- 
and-tumble  Arctic  games  through  many  a  cold  and 
dismal  century,  finally  melting  away  as  the  milder 
weather  began  slowly  to  return,  leaving  Ireland  a 
very  lamentable-looking  island  indeed,  not  unlike 
one  of  those  deplorable  islands  scattered  along  the 
shores  of  Greenland  and  upon  the  edges  of  Baffin's 
Bay — treeless,  grassless,  brown  and  scalded,  wearing 
everywhere  over  its  surface  the  marks  of  that  great 
ice-plough  which  had  lacerated  its  sides  so  long. 

There  seems  to  be  good  geological  evidence  that 
the  land  connection  between  Ireland  and  Scotland 
continued  to  a  considerably  later  period  than  between 
it  and  England,  to  which,  and  as  far  as  can  be  seen 
to  no  other  possible  cause  is  to  be  attributed  two 
very  striking  characteristics  of  its  fauna,  namely,  its 
excessive  meagreness  and  its  strikingly  northern 
character.  Not  only  does  it  come  far  short  of  the 
already  meagre  English  fauna,  but  all  the  distinctively 
southern  species  are  the  ones  missing,  though  there 
is  nothing  in  the  climate  to  account  for  the  fact. 
The  Irish  hare,  for  instance,  is  not  the  ordinary  brown 
hare  of  England,  but  the  "  blue  "  or  Arctic  hare  of 


PAUNA   AND  FLORA.  5 

Scotch  mountains,  the  same  which  still  further  to  the 
north  becomes  white  in  winter,  a  habit  which,  owing 
to  the  milder  Irish  winters,  it  has  apparently  shaken 
off. 

It  would  be  pleasant  to  linger  here  a  little  over 
this  point  of  distribution — so  fruitful  of  suggestion  as 
to  the  early  history  of  the  planet  we  occupy.  To 
speculate  as  to  the  curious  contradictions,  or  apparent 
contradictions,  to  be  found  even  within  so  narrow  an 
area  as  that  of  Ireland.  What,  for  instance,  has 
brought  a  group  of  South  European  plants  to  the 
shores  of  Kerry  and  Connemara,  which  plants  are  not 
to  be  found  in  England,  even  in  Cornwall,  which  one 
would  have  thought  must  surely  have  arrested  them 
first  ?  Why,  when  neither  the  common  toad  or  frog 
are  indigenous  in  Ireland  (for  the  latter,  though 
common  enough  now,  was  only  introduced  at  the 
beginning  of  last  century)  a  comparatively  rare  little 
toad,  the  Natterjack,  should  be  found  in  one  corner 
of  Kerry  to  all  appearances  indigenously?  All  these 
questions,  however,  belong  to  quite  another  sort  of 
book,  and  to  a  much  larger  survey  of  the  field  than 
there  is  time  here  to  embark  upon,  so  there  is  nothing 
for  it  but  to  turn  one's  back  resolutely  upon  the 
tempting  sin  of  discursiveness,  or  we  shall  find  our- 
selves belated  before  our  real  journey  is  even 
begun. 

The  first  people,  then,  of  whose  existence  in  Ireland 
we  can  be  said  to  know  anything  are  commonly 
asserted  to  have  been  of  Turanian  origin,  and  are 
known  as  "Formorians,"  As  far  as  we  can  gather, 
they  were  a  dark,  low-browed,  stunted  race,  although, 


^J 


6  PRIMEVAL    IRELAND. 

oddly  enough,  the  word  Formorian  in  early  Irish 
legend  is  always  used  as  synonymous  with  the  word 
giant.  They  were,  at  any  rate,  a  race  of  utterly 
savage  hunters  and  fishermen,  ignorant  of  metal,  of 
pottery,  possibly  even  of  the  use  of  fire  ;  using  the 
stone  hammers  or  hatchets  of  which  vast  numbers 
remain  in  Ireland  to  this  day,  and  specimens  of  which 
may  be  seen  in  every  museum.  How  long  they  held 
possession  no  one  can  tell,  although  Irish  philologists 
believe  several  local  Irish  names  to  date  from  this 
almost  inconceivably  remote  epoch.  Perhaps  if  we 
think  of  the  Lapps  of  the  present  day,  and  picture 
them  wandering  about  the  country,  catching  the  hares 
and  rabbits  in  nooses,  burrowing  in  the  earth  or 
amongst  rocks,  and  being,  not  impossibly,  looked 
down  on  with  scorn  by  the  great  Irish  elk  which  still 
stalked  majestically  over  the  hills ;  rearing  ugly  little 
altars  to  dim,  formless  gods ;  trembling  at  every 
sudden  gust,  and  seeing  demon  faces  in  every  bush 
and  brake,  it  will  give  us  a  fairly  good  notion  of 
what  these  very  earliest  inhabitants  of  Ireland  were 
probably  like. 

Next  followed  a  Belgic  colony,  known  as  the 
Firbolgs,  who  overran  the  country,  and  appear  to 
have  been  of  a  somewhat  higher  ethnological  grade, 
although,  like  the  Formorians,  short,  dark,  and  swarthy. 
Doubtless  the  latter  were  not  entirely  exterminated 
to  make  way  for  the  Firbolgs,  any  more  than  the 
Firbolgs  to  make  way  for  the  Danaans,  Milesians, 
and  other  successive  races  ;  such  wholesale  exter- 
minations being,  in  fact>  very  rare,  especially  in  a 
country  which  like  Ireland  seems  specially  laid  out 


THE   FIRBOLGS.  -  7 

by  kindly  nature  for  the  protection  of  a  weaker  race 
struggling  in  the  grip  of  a  stronger  one. 

After  the  Firbolgs,  though  I  should  be  sorry  to 
be  obliged  to  say  how  long  after,  fresh  and  more 
important  tribes  of  invaders  began  to  appear.  The 
first  of  these  were  the  Tuatha-da-Danaans,  who 
arrived  under  the  leadership  of  their  king  Nuad,  and 
took  possession  of  the  east  of  the  country.  These 
Tuatha-da-Danaans  are  believed  to  have  been  large, 
blue-eyed  people  of  Scandinavian  origin,  kinsmen  and 
possibly  ancestors  of  those  Norsemen  or  "  Danes  "  who 
in  years  to  come  were  destined  to  work  such  woe  and 
havoc  upon  the  island. 

Many  battles  took  place  between  these  Danaans 
and  the  earlier  Firbolgic  settlers  —the  native  owners  as 
no  doubt  they  felt  themselves  of  the  country.  One  of 
the  best  substantiated  of  these,  not,  indeed,  by  history 
or  even  tradition,  but  by  a  more  solid  testimony,  that 
of  the  stone  remains  left  on  the  spot,  prove,  at  any 
rate,  that  so^/^e  long-  sustained  battle  was  at  some 
remote  period  fought  on  the  spot. 

This  is  the  famous  pre-historic  battle  of  Moytura, 
rather  the  Southern  Moytura,  for  there  were  two  ; 
the  other,  situated  not  far  from  the  present  town  of 
Sligo,  retaining  "  the  largest  collection  of  pre-historic 
remains,"  says  Dr.  Petrie,  "  in  any  region  in  the  world 
with  the  exception  of  Carnac."  This  second  battle 
of  Moytura  was  fought  upon  the  plain  of  Cong,  which 
is  washed  by  the  waters  of  Lough  Mask  and  Lough 
Corrib,  close  to  where  the  long  monotonous  midland 
plain  of  Ireland  becomes  broken,  changes  into  that 
region  of  high  mountains  and  low-lying  valleys,  now 


8  PRIMEVAL   IRELAND. 

called  Connemara,  but  which  In  earlier  days  was 
always  known  as  lar  Connaught. 

It  is  a  wild  scene  even  now,  not  very  much  less 
so  than  it  must  have  been  when  this  old  and  half- 
mythical  Battle  of  the  West  was  fought  and  won.  A 
grey  plain,  "  stone-roughened  like  the  graveyard  of 
dead  hosts,"  broken  into  grassy  ridges,  and  starred  at 
intervals  with  pools,  repeating  the  larger  glitter  of 
the  lake  hard  by.  Over  the  whole  surface  of  this 
tumbled  plain  rise,  at  intervals,  great  masses  of  rock, 
some  natural,  but  others  artificially  up-tilted — crom- 
lechs and  dolmens,  menhirs  and  cairns — whitened  by 
lichen  scrawls,  giving  them  often  in  uncertain  light 
the  effect  of  so  many  undecipherable  inscriptions, 
written  in  a  long-forgotten  tongue. 

From  the  position  of  the  battle-field  it  has  been 
made  out  to  their  own  satisfaction  by  those  who  have 
studied  it  on  the  spot,  that  the  Firbolgs  must  have 
taken  up  a  fortified  position  upon  the  hill  called  Ben- 
levi  ;  a  good  strategic  position  unquestionably,  having 
behind  it  the  whole  of  the  Mayo  mountains  into  which 
to  retreat  in  case  of  defeat.  The  Danaans,  on  the  other 
hand,  advancing  from  the  plains  of  Meath,  took  up  their 
station  upon  the  hill  known  as  Knockmaa,':  standing  by 
itself  about  five  miles  from  the  present  town  of  Tuam, 
on  the  top  of  which  stands  a  great  cairn,  believed  to 
have  been  in  existence  even  then — a  legacy  of  some 
yet  earlier  and  more  primitive  race  which  inhabited 
the  country,  and,  therefore,  possibly  the  oldest  record 
of  humanity  to-day  extant  in  Ireland. 

Three  days  the  battle  is  said  to  have  raged  with 
'  Mow  Castle  Racket  Hill. 


BATTLE   OF  MOYTURA.  g 

varying  fortunes,  in  the  course  of  which  the  Danaan 
king  Nuad  lost  his  arm,  a  loss  which  was  repaired,  we 
are  told,  by  the  famous  artificer  Credue  or  Cerd,  who 
made  him  a  silver  one,  and  as  "  Nuad  of  the  Silver 
Hand  "  he  figures  conspicuously  in  early  Irish  history. 
In  spite  of  this,  and  of  the  death  of  a  number  of  their 
fighting-men,  the  stars  fought  for  the  Tuatha-da- 
Danaans,  who  were  strong  men  and  cunning,  workers 
in  metal,  and  great  fighters,  so  that  at  last  they 
utterly  made  an  end  of  their  antagonists,  occupying 
the  whole  country,  and  holding  it,  say  the  annalists 
for  a  hundred  and  ninety  and  six  years — building 
earth  and  stone  forts,  many  of  which  exist  to  this 
day,  but  what  their  end  was  no  man  can  tell  you, 
save  that  they,  too,  were,  in  their  turn,  conquered  by 
the  Milesians  or  "Scoti,"who  next  overran  the  country, 
giving  to  it  their  own  name  of  Scotia,  by  which  name 
it  was  known  down  to  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century, 
and  driving  the  earlier  settlers  before  them,  who  there- 
upon fled  to  the  hills,  and  took  refuge  in  the  forests, 
whence  they  emerged,  doubtless,  with  unpleasant 
effect  upon  their  conquerors,  as  another  defeated  race 
did  upon  t/ieir  conquerors  in  later  days. 

As  regards  the  early  doings  of  these  Scoti,  although 
nearer  to  us  in  point  of  time,  their  history  is,  if  any- 
thing, rather  more  vague  than  that  of  their  prede- 
cessors. The  source  for  the  greater  part  of  it  is  in  a 
work  known  as  the  "  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,"  a 
compilation  put  together  in  the  sixteenth  century,  from 
documents  now  no  longer  existing,  and  which  must 
unfortunately,  be  regarded  as  largely  fictitious.  Were 
names,  indeed,  all  that  were  wanting  to  give  substan- 


rO  PRIMEVAL  IRELAND. 

tiality  there  are  enough  and  to  spare,  the  beginning 
of  every  Irish  history  positively  bristling  with  them. 
Leland,  for  instance,  who  published  his  three  sturdy 
tomes  in  the  year  1773,  and  who  is  still  one  of  our 
chief  authorities  on  the  subject,  speaks  of  Ireland  as 
having  "  engendered  one  hundred  and  seventy  one 
monarchs,  all  of  the  same  house  and  lineage  ;  with 
sixty-eight  kings,  and  two  queens  of  Great  Brittain 
and  Ireland  all  sprung  equally  from  her  loins."  We 
read  in  his  pages  of  the  famous  brethren  Heber  and 
Heremon,  sons  of  Milesius,  who  divided  the  island 
between  them  ;  of  Allamh  Fodla,  celebrated  as  a 
healer  of  feuds  and  protector  of  learning,  who  drew 
the  priests  and  bards  together  into  a  triennial 
assembly  at  Tara,  in  Meath  ;  of  Kimbaoth,  who  is 
praised  by  the  annalists  for  having  advanced  learning 
and  kept  the  peace.  The  times  of  peace  had  not  ab- 
solutely arrived  however,  for  he  was  not  long  after 
murdered,  and  wild  confusion  and  wholesale  slaughter 
ensued.  Another  Milesian  prince,  Thuathal,  shortly 
afterwards  returned  from  North  Britain,  and,  assisted 
by  a  body  of  Pictish  soldiers,  defeated  the  rebels, 
restored  order,  and  re-established  the  seat  of  his 
monarchy  in  Meath. 

As  a  specimen  of  the  sort  of  stories  current  in 
history  of  this  kind,  Leland  relates  at  considerable 
length  the  account  of  the  insult  offered  to  this  Thuathal 
by  the  provincial  king  of  Leinster.  "  The  king,"  he 
tells  us,  "  had  married  the  daughter  of  Thuathal,  but 
conceiving  a  violent  passion  for  her  sister,  pretended 
that  his  wife  had  died,  and  demanded  and  obtained 
her  sister  in   marriage.     The  two  ladies  met  in  the 


MYTHS.  II 

royal  house  of  Leinster.  Astonishment  and  sorrow 
put  an  end  to  their  lives  ! "  The  offender  not  long 
afterwards  was  invaded  by  his  justly  indignant 
father-in-law,  and  his  province  only  preserved  from 
desolation  on  condition  of  paying  a  heavy  tribute, 
"  as  a  perpetual  memorial  of  the  resentment  of 
Thuathal  and  of  the  offence  committed  by  the  king 
of  Leinster." 

Another  special  favourite  of  the  annalists  is  Cormac 
O'Conn,  whose  reign  they  place  about  the  year  250, 
and  over  whose  doings  they  wax  eloquent,  dwell- 
ing upon  the  splendour  of  his  court,  the  heroism  of 
his  warlike  sons,  the  beauty  of  his  ten  fair  daughters, 
the  doings  of  his  famous  militia,  the  Fenni  or  Fenians, 
and  especially  of  his  illustrious  general  Finn,  or  Fingal, 
the  hero  of  the  legends,  and  father  of  the  poet  Ossian 
— a  warrior  whom  we  shall  meet  with  again  in  the 
next  chapter. 

And  now,  it  will  perhaps  be  asked,  what  is  one  in 
sober  seriousness  to  say  to  all  this  .-*  All  that  one  can 
say  is  that  these  tales  are  not  to  be  taken  as  history 
in  any  rigid  sense  of  the  word,  but  must  for  the  most 
part  be  regarded  as  mere  hints,  caught  from  chaos, 
and  coming  down  through  a  hundred  broken  mediums ; 
scraps  of  adventures  told  around  camp  fires  ;  oral 
traditions;  rude  songs  handed  from  father  to  son,  and 
altering  more  or  less  with  each  new  teller.  The  early 
history  of  Ireland  is  in  this  respect  much  like  the  early 
history  of  all  other  countries.  We  have  the  same 
semi-mythical  aggregations,  grown  up  around  some 
small  kernel  of  reality,  but  so  changed,  swollen, 
distorted,  that   it   is  difficult  to  distinguish   the  true 


12 


PRIMEVAL    IRELAND. 


from  the  false ;  becoming  vaguer  and  vaguer  too 
as  the  mists  of  time  and  sentiment  gather  more  and 
more  thickly  around  them,  until  at  last  we  seem  to  be 
swimming  dimly  in  a  "  moony  vapour,"  which  allows  no 
dull  peaks  of  reality  to  pierce  through  it  at  all.  "There 
were  giants  in  those  days,"  is  a  continually  recurring 
assertion,  characteristic  of  all  ancient  annals,  and  of 
these  with  the  rest. 


CROMLECH   ON   HOWTH. 


11. 

THE  LEGENDS  AND  THE  LEGEND  MAKERS. 

Better  far  than  such  historic  shams — cardboard 
castles  with  little  or  no  substance  behind  them — are  the 
real  legends.  These  put  forward  no  obtrusive  preten- 
sions to  accuracy,  and  for  that  very  reason  are  far 
truer  in  that  larger  sense  in  which  all  the  genuine 
and  spontaneous  outgrowth  of  a  country  form  part 
and  parcel  of  its  history.  Some  of  the  best  of  these 
have  been  excellently  translated  by  Mr.  Joyce,  whose 
"Celtic  Romances"  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  every 
one,  from  the  boy  of  twelve  upwards,  who  aspires  to 
know  anything  of  the  inner  history  of  Ireland  ;  to 
understand,  that  is  to  say,  that  curiously  recurrent  note 
of  poetry  and  pathos  which  breaks  continually  through 
all  the  dull  hard  prose  of  the  surface.  A  note  often 
lost  in  unmitigated  din  and  discord,  yet  none  the  less 
re-emerging,  age  after  age,  and  century  after  century, 
and  always  when  it  does  so  lending  its  own  charm 
to  a  record,  which,  without  some  such  alleviations, 
would  be  almost  too  grim  and  disheartening  in  its 
unrelieved  and  unresulting  misery  to  be  voluntarily 
approached  at  all. 

Although  as  they  now  stand  none  appear  to  be  of 


14  THE  LEGENDS  AND    THE   LEGEND  MAKERS. 

earlier  date  than  the  ninth  or  tenth  century,  these 
stories  all  breathe  the  very  breath  of  a  primitive 
world.  An  air  of  remote  pagan  antiquity  hangs  over 
them,  and  as  we  read  we  seem  gradually  to  realize 
an  Ireland  as  unlike  the  one  we  know  now  as  if, 
like  the  magic  island  of  Buz,  it  had  sunk  under  the 
waves  and  been  lost.  Take,  for  instance — for  space 
will  not  allow  of  more  than  a  sample — the  story  of  "  The 
Pursuit  of  Gilla  Backer  and  his  Horse,"  not  by  any 
means  one  of  the  best,  yet  characteristic  enough. 
In  it  we  learn  that  from  Beltane,  the  ist  of  May — the 
great  Celtic  festival  of  the  sun — to  Sanim,  the  ist  of 
November,  the  chiefs  and  Fenni  hunted  each  day  with 
their  hounds  through  the  forests  and  over  the  plains, 
while  from  Sanim  to  Beltane  they  lived  in  the 
"  Betas,"  or  houses  of  hospitality,  or  feasted  high 
with  Finn  McCumal,  son  of  Cumal,  grandson  of 
Trenmore  O'Baskin,  whose  palace  stood  upon  the 
summit  of  the  hill  of  Allen,  a  hill  now  crowned  with 
a  meaningless  modern  obelisk,  covering  the  site  of 
the  old  historic  rath,  a  familiar  object  to  thousands 
who  have  looked  jup  at  it  from  the  Curragh  of  Kildare, 
certainly  with  no  thought  in  their  minds  of  Finn 
McCumal  or  his  vanished  warriors. 

The  tale  tells  how  one  day,  after  hunting  on  the 
Plains  of  Cliach,  the  Fenni  sat  down  to  rest  upon  the 
hill  of  Colkilla,  their  hunting  tents  being  pitched  upon 
a  level  spot  near  the  summit.  How  presently,  afar  off 
over  the  plain  at  their  feet,  they  saw  one  of  the  con- 
quered race  of  earlier  inhabitants,  a  "  Formorian  "  of 
huge  size  and  repulsive  ugliness  coming  towards  them, 
leading  his  horse  by  the  halter,  an  animal  larger,  it 


THE   STORY   OF   THE   GILL  A   D  ACKER.  15 

seems,  than  six  ordinary  horses,  but  broken  down  and 
knock-kneed,  with  jaws  that  stuck  out  far  in  advance 
of  its  head.  How  the  heroes,  idling  pleasantly  about  in 
the  sunshine,  laughed  aloud  at  the  uncouth  "foreigner  " 
and  his  ugly  raw-boned  beast,  "  covered  with  tangled 
scraggy  hair  of  a  sooty  black."  How  he  came  before 
the  king  and,  having  made  obeisance,  told  him  that 
his  name  was  the  Gilla  Backer,  and  then  and  there 
took  service  with  him  for  a  year,  desiring  at  the  same 
time  that  special  care  should  be  paid  to  his  horse, 
and  the  best  food  given  it,  and  care  taken  that  it 
did  not  stray,  whereat  the  heroes  laughed  again,  the 
horse  standing  like  a  thing  carved  in  wood  and  unable 
apparently  to  move  a  leg. 

No  sooner,  however,  was  it  loosed,  and  the  halter 
cast  off,  than  it  rushed  amongst  the  other  horses, 
kicking  and  lashing,  and  seizing  them  with  its 
teeth  till  not  one  escaped.  Seeing  which,  the  Fenni 
rose  up  in  high  wrath,  and  one  of  them  seized  the 
Gilla  Backer's  horse  by  the  halter  and  tried  to 
draw  it  away,  but  again  it  became  like  a  rock,  and 
refused  to  stir.  Then  he  mounted  its  back  and 
flogged  it,  but  still  it  remained  like  a  stone.  Then, 
one  after  the  other,  thirteen  more  of  the  heroes 
mounted,  but  still  it  stirred  not.  The  ver>'  instant, 
however,  that  its  master,  the  Gilla  Backer  rose  up 
angrily  to  depart,  the  old  horse  went  too,  with  the 
fourteen  heroes  still  upon  his  back,  whereat  the  Fenni 
raised  fresh  shouts  of  laughter.  But  the  Gilla  Backer, 
after  he  had  walked  a  little  way,  looked  back,  and 
seeing  that  his  horse  was  following,  stood  for  a  moment 
to  tuck  up  his  skirts.    "  Then,  all  at  once  changing  his 


1 6  THE  LEGENDS  AND    THE   LEGEND  MAKERS. 

pace,  he  set  out  with  long  strides  ;  and  if  you  know 
what  the  speed  of  a  swallow  is,  flying  across  a 
mountain-side,  or  the  fairy  wind  of  a  March  day 
sweeping  over  the  plains,  then  you  can  understand 
Gilla  Backer,  as  he  ran  down  the  hillside  towards 
the  south-west.  Neither  was  the  horse  behindhand 
in  the  race,  for,  though  he  carried  a  heavy  load,  he 
galloped  like  the  wind  after  his  master,  plunging  and 
bounding  forward  with  as  much  freedom  as  if  he  had 
nothing  at  all  on  his  back." 

Finn  and  his  warriors  left  behind  on  the  hill  stared 
awhile,  and  then  resolved  to  go  to  Ben  Edar,  now 
Howth,  there  to  seek  for  a  ship  to  follow  after 
Gilla  Backer  and  his  horse,  and  the  fourteen 
heroes.  And  on  their  way  they  met  two  bright-faced 
youths  wearing  mantles  of  scarlet  silk,  fastened  by 
brooches  of  gold,  who,  saluting  the  king,  told  him 
their  names  were  Foltlebar  and  Feradach,  and  that 
they  were  the  sons  of  the  king  of  Innia,  and  each 
possessed  an  art,  and  that  as  they  walked  they  had 
disputed  whose  art  was  the  greater.  "  And  my  art," 
said  Feradach,  "  is  this.  If  at  any  time  a  company 
of  warriors  need  a  ship,  give  me  only  my  joiner's  axe 
and  my  crann-tavall,^  and  I  am  able  to  provide  a  ship 
without  delay.  The  only  thing  I  ask  them  to  do  is  this 
— to  cover  their  heads  close  and  keep  them  covered, 
while  I  give  the  crann-tavall  three  blows  of  my  axe. 
Then  I  tell  them  to  uncover  their  heads,  and  lo,  there 
lies  the  ship  in  harbour,  ready  to  sail !  " 

The  Foltlebar  spoke  and  said,  "  This,  O  king,  is  the 
art  I  profess :  On  land  I  can  track  the  wild  duck  over 

'  A  sling  for  projeciing  stones,  strung  rather  like  a  cross-bow. 


THE   STORY  OF   THE   GILLA   BACKER.  tj 

nine  ridges  and  nine  glens,  and  follow  her  without 
being  once  thrown  out,  till  I  drop  upon  her  in  her  nest. 
And  I  can  follow  up  a  track  on  sea  quite  as  well  as  on 
land,  if  I  have  a  good  ship  and  crew." 

And  Finn  replied,  "  You  are  the  very  men  I  want  ; 
and  now  I  take  you  both  into  my  service.  Though  our 
own  trackmen,  the  Clan  Naim,  are  good,  yet  we  now 
need  some  one  still  more  skilful  to  follow  the  Gilla 
Backer  through  unknown  seas." 

To  these  unknown  seas  they  went,  starting  from 
Ben  Edar,  and  sailed  away  west  for  many  days  over 
the  Atlantic,  seeing  many  strange  sights  and  passing 
many  unknown  islands.  But  at  last  the  ship  stopped 
short  in  front  of  an  island  with  vast  rocky  cliffs 
towering  high  above  their  heads  as  steep  as  a  sheet  of 
glass,  at  which  the  heroes  gazed  amazed  and  baffled, 
not  knowing  what  to  do  next.  But  Dermot  O'Dynor 
— called  also  Dermot  of  the  Bright-face — undertook  to 
climb  it,  for  of  all  the  Fenni  he  was  the  most  learned 
in  Druidical  enchantments,  having  been  early  taught 
the  secret  of  fairy  lore  by  Mananan  Mac  Lir,  who  ruled 
over  the  Inis  Manan  or  Land  of  Promise. 

Dermot  accordingly  took  leave  of  his  friends  and 
climbed  the  great  cliff,  and  when  he  reached  the  top 
he  found  that  it  was  flat  and  covered  with  tall  green 
grass,  as  is  often  the  case  in  these  desolate  wind- 
blown Atlantic  islets.  And  in  the  very  centre  he 
found  a  well  with  a  tall  pillar  stone  beside  it,  and 
beside  the  pillar  stone  a  drinking-horn  chased  with 
gold.  And  he  took  up  the  drinking-horn  to  drink, 
being  thirsty,  but  the  instant  he  touched  the  brim 
with  his  lips,  lo  !  a  great  Wizard   Champion  armed 


1 8  THE   LEGENDS  AND   THE  LEGEND   MAKERS. 

to  the  teeth,  sprang  up  out  of  the  earth,  whereupon  he 
and  Dermot  O'Dynor  fought  together  beside  the  well 
the  livelong  day  until  the  dusk  fell.  But  the  moment 
the  dusk  fell,  the  wizard  champion  sprang  with  a  great 
bound  into  the  middle  of  the  well,  and  so  disappeared, 
leaving  Dermot  standing  there  much  astonished  at 
what  had  befallen  him. 

And  the  next  day  the  same  thing  happened,  and 
the  next,  and  the  next.  But  on  the  fourth  day, 
Dermot  watched  his  foe  narrowly,  and  when  the  dusk 
came  on,  and  he  saw  that  he  was  about  to  spring 
into  the  well,  he  flung  his  arms  tightly  about  him, 
and  the  wizard  champion  struggled  to  get  free,  but 
Dermot  held  him,  and  at  length  they  both  fell 
together  into  the  well,  deeper  and  deeper  to  the 
very  bottom  of  the  earth,  and  there  was  nothing 
to  be  seen  but  dim  shadows,  and  nothing  to  be 
heard  but  vague  confused  sounds  like  the  roaring 
of  waves.  At  length  there  came  a  glimmering  of 
light,  and  all  at  once  bright  day  broke  suddenly 
around  them,  and  they  came  out  at  the  other  side 
of  the  earth,  and  found  themselves  in  Tir-fa-ton,  the 
land  under  the  sea,  where  the  flowers  bloom  all  the 
year  round,  and  no  man  has  ever  so  much  as  heard  the 
word  Death. 

What  happened  there  ;  how  Dermot  O'Dynor  met 
the  other  heroes,  and  how  the  fourteen  Fenni  who 
had  been  carried  off  were  at  last  recaptured,  would 
be  too  long  to  tell.  Unlike  most  of  these  legends  all 
comes  right  in  the  end  ;  Gilla  Dacker  and  his  ugly 
horse  disappear  suddenly  into  space,  and  neither  Finn 
himself  nor  any  of  his  warriors  ever  see  them  again. 


THE   BARDS.  I9 

It  is  impossible,  I  think,  to  read  this,  and  to  an  even 
greater  degree  some  of  the  other  stories,  which  have 
been  translated  by  Mr.  Joyce  and  others,  without  per- 
ceiving how  thoroughly  impregnated  with  old-world 
and  mythological  sentiment  they  are.  An  air  of  all 
but  fabulous  antiquity  pervades  them,  greater  perhaps 
than  pervades  the  legends  of  any  other  north  Euro- 
pean people.  We  seem  transplanted  to  a  world  of 
the  most  primitive  type  conceivable  ;  a  world  of  myth 
and  of  fable,  of  direct  Nature  interpretations,  of 
mythology,  in  short,  pure  and  simple.  Even  those 
stories  which  are  known  to  be  of  later  origin  exhibit 
to  a  greater  or  less  degree  the  same  character  ;  one 
which  has  come  down  to  them  doubtless  from  earlier 
half-forgotten  tales,  of  which  they  are  merely  the  final 
and  most  modern  outcome. 

When,  too,  we  turn  from  the  legends  themselves  to 
the  legend-makers,  everything  that  we  know  of  the 
position  of  the  bards  {OllaniJis  or  Sennacliies)  carries 
out  the  same  idea.  In  the  earliest  times  they  were 
not  merely  the  singers  and  story-tellers  of  their  race, 
but  to  a  great  degree  they  bore  a  religious  or  semi- 
religious  character.  Like  the  Brehons  or  judges  they 
were  the  directors  and  guides  of  the  others,  but  they 
possessed  in  addition  a  peculiarly  Druidical  character 
of  sanctity,  as  the  inheritors  and  interpreters  of  a 
revelation  confided  to  them  alone.  A  power  the 
more  formidable  because  no  one,  probably,  had  ever 
ventured  to  define  its  exact  character. 

The  Head  bard  or  Ollamh,  in  the  estimation  of  his 
tribesmen,  stood  next  in  importance  to  the  chieftain  or 
king — higher,  indeed,  in  some  respects  ;  for  whereas 


20  THE  LEGENDS  AND    THE  LEGEND  MAKERS. 

to  slay  a  king  might,  or  might  not  be  criminal,  to  slay 
an  Ollamh  entailed  both  outlawing  in  this  life  and  a 
vaguer,  but  not  the  less  terrible,  supernatural  penalty  in 
another.  Occasionally,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Ollamh 
Fodhla,  by  whom  the  halls  of  Tara  are  reputed  to  have 
been  built,  the  king  was  himself  the  bard,  and  so 
combined  both  offices,  but  this  appears  to  have  been 
rare.  Even  as  late  as  the  sixteenth  century,  refusal 
of  praise  from  a  bard  was  held  to  confer  a  far  deeper 
and  more  abiding  stigma  upon  a  man  than  blame  from 
any  other  lips.  If  they,  "  the  bards,"  says  an  Eliza- 
bethan writer,  "  say  ought  in  dispraise,  the  gentleman, 
especially  the  meere  Irish,  stand  in  great  awe." 

It  is  easy,  I  think,  to  see  this  is  merely  the  sur- 
vival of  some  far  more  potent  power  wielded  in  earlier 
times.  In  pre-Christian  days  especially,  the  penalty 
attaching  to  the  curse  of  a  Bard  was  understood  to 
carry  with  it  a  sort  of  natural  anathema,  not  unlike 
the  priestly  anathema  of  later  times.  Indeed  there 
was  one  singular,  and,  as  far  as  -I  am  aware,  unique 
power  possessed  by  the  Irish  Bards,  which  goes  beyond 
any  priestly  or  papal  anathema,  and  which  was 
known  as  the  Clann  Dichin,  a  truly  awful  malediction, 
by  means  of  which  the  Ollamh,  if  offended  or  injured, 
could  pronounce  a  spell  against,  the  very  land  of  his 
injurer  ;  which  spell  once  pronounced  that  land 
would  produce  no  crop  of  any  kind,  neither  could 
living  creature  graze  upon  it,  neither  was  it  possible 
even  to  walk  over  it  without  peril,  and  so  it  continued 
until  the  wrong,  whatever  it  was,  had  been  repented, 
and  the  curse  of  the  Ollamh  was  lifted  off  from  the 
land  acrain. 


THE   CLANN  DICHIN.  21 

Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  men,  endowed  with 
such  powers  of  blessing  or  banning,  possessed  of  such 
mystic  communion  with  the  then  utterly  unknown 
powers  of  nature,  should  have  exercised  an  all  but 
unlimited  influence  over  the  minds  of  their  countrymen, 
especially  at  a  time  when  the  powers  of  evil  were 
still  supposed  to  stalk  the  earth  in  all  their  native 
malignity,  and  no  light  of  any  revelation  had  broken 
through  the  thick  dim  roof  overhead  ? 

Few  races  of  which  the  world  has  ever  heard  are 
as  imaginative  as  that  of  the  Celt,  and  at  this  time  the 
imagination  of  every  Celt  must  have  been  largely 
exercised  in  the  direction  of  the  malevolent  and  the 
terrible.  Even  now,  after  fourteen  hundred  years  of 
Christianity,  the  Connaught  or  Kerry  peasant  still 
hears  the  shriek  of  his  early  gods  in  the  sob  of 
the  waves  or  the  howling  of  the  autumn  storms.  Fish 
demons  gleam  out  of  the  sides  of  the  mountains,  and 
the  black  bog-holes  are  the  haunts  of  slimy  monsters 
of  inconceivable  horror.  Even  the  less  directly 
baneful  spirits  such  as  Finvarragh,  king  of  the  fairies, 
who  haunts  the  stony  slopes  of  Knockmaa,  and  all  the 
endless  variety  of  dil  niinores,  the  cluricans,  banshees, 
fetches  who  peopled  the  primitive  forests,  and  still 
hop  and  mow  about  their  ruined  homes,  were  far 
more  likely  to  injure  than  to  benefit  unless  approached 
in  exactly  the  right  manner,  and  with  the  properly 
uttered  conjurations.  The  Unknown  is  always  the 
Terrible;  and  the  more  vivid  an  untaught  imagination 
is,  the  more  certain  it  is  to  conjure  up  exactly  the 
things  which  alarm  it  most,  and  which  it  least  likes 
to  have  to  believe  in. 


Ill 


PRE-CHRISTIAN    IRELAND. 


Getting  out  of  this  earliest  and  foggiest  period, 
whose  only  memorials  are  the  stones  which  still  cumber 
the  ground,  or  those  subtler  traces  of  occupation  of 
which  philology  keeps  the  key,and  pushing  aside  a  long 
and  uncounted  crowd  of  kings,  with  names  as  uncertain 
as  their  deeds,  pushing  aside,  too,  the  legends  and 
coming  to  hard  fact,  we  must  picture  Ireland  still 
covered  for  the  most  part  with  pathless  forests,  but 
here  and  there  cleared  and  settled  after  a  rude  fashion 
by  rough  cattle-owning  tribes,  who  herded  their  own 
cattle  and  "  lifted "  their  neighbour's  quite  in  the 
approved  fashion  of  the  Scotch  Highlanders  up  to  a 
century  and  a  half  ago. 

Upon  the  whole,  we  may  fairly  conclude  that  matters 
were  ameliorating  more  or  less  ;  that  the  wolves  were 
being  killed,  the  woods  cleared — not  as  yet  in  the 
ferocious  wholesale  fashion  of  later  days — that  a  little 
rudimentary  agriculture  showed  perhaps  here  and  there 
in  sheltered  places.  Sheep  and  goats  grazed  then  as 
now  over  the  hills,  and  herds  of  cattle  began  to  cover 
the  Lowlands.  The  men,  too,  were  possibly  beginning 
to  grow  a  trifle  less  like  two-legged  beasts  of  prey, 


SLAVERY.  23 

though  Still  rough  as  the  very  wolves  they  hunted  ; 
bare-legged,  wild-eyed  hunter-herdsmen  with — who 
can  doubt  it  ? — flocks  of  children  trooping  vociferously 
at  their  heels. 

Of  the  daily  life,  habits,  dress,  religion  of  these 
people — the  direct  ancestors  of  four-fifths  of  the  pre- 
sent inhabitants  of  Ireland — we  know  unfortunately 
exceedingly  little.  It  is  not  even  certain,  whether 
human  sacrifices  did  or  did  not  form — as  they  certainly 
did  in  Celtic  Britain — part  of  that  religion,  though 
there  is  some  evidence  that  it  did,  in  which  case 
prisoners  taken  in  battle,  or  slaves,  were  probably  the 
victims. 

That  a  considerable  amount  of  slavery  existed 
in  early  Celtic  Ireland  is  certain,  though  as  to  the 
rules  by  which  it  was  regulated,  as  of  almost  every 
other  detail  of  the  life,  we  know  little  or  nothing. 
At  the  time  of  the  Anglo-Norman  conquest  Ireland 
was  said  to  be  full  of  English  slaves  carried  off  in 
raids  along  the  coast,  and  these  filibustering  expedi- 
tions undoubtedly  began  in  very  early  times.  St. 
Patrick  himself  was  thus  carried  off,  and  the  annalists 
tell  us  that  in  the  third  century  Cormac  Mac  Art 
ravaged  the  whole  western  coast  of  Britain,  and 
brought  away  "  great  stores  of  slaves  and  treasures." 
To  how  late  a  period,  too,  the  earlier  conquered  races 
of  Ireland,  such  as  the  Formorians,  continued  as  a 
distinct  race  from  their  Milesian  conquerors,  and 
whether  they  existed  as  a  slave  class,  or,  as  seems 
more  probable,  as  mere  outcasts  and  vagabonds  out  of 
the  pale  of  humanity,  liable  like  the  "  Tory  "  of  many 
centuries  later,  to  be  killed  whenever  caught ;  all  these 


24  PRE-CHRISTIAN  IRELAND. 

are  matters  on  which  we  have  unfortunately  only  the 
vaguest  hints  to  guide  us. 

The  whole  texture  of  society  must  have  been  loose 
and  irregular  to  a  degree  that  it  is  difficult  for  us  now 
to  conceive,  without  central  organization  or  social 
cement  of  any  kind.  In  one  respect — that  of  the 
treatment  of  his  women — the  Irish  Celt  seems  to  have 
always  stood  in  favourable  contrast  to  most  of  the 
other  rude  races  which  then  covered  the  north  of 
Europe,  but  as  regards  the  rest  there  was  probably 
little  difference.  Fighting  was  the  one  aim  of  life. 
Not  to  have  washed  his  spear  in  an  adversary's  gore, 
was  a  reproach  which  would  have  been  felt  by  a  full- 
grown  tribesman  to  have  carried  with  it  the  deepest 
and  most  lasting  ignominy.  The  very  women  were 
not  in  early  times  exempt  from  war  service,  nay, 
probably  would  have  scorned  to  be  so.  They  fought 
beside  their  husbands,  and  slew  or  got  slain  with  as 
reckless  a  courage  as  the  men,  and  it  was  not  until  the 
time  of  St.  Columba,  late  in  the  sixth  century,  that  a 
law  was  passed  ordering  them  to  remain  in  their 
homes — a  fact  which  alone  speaks  volumes  both  for 
the  vigour  and  the  undying  pugnacity  of  the  race. 

While,  on  the  one  hand,  we  can  hardly  thus 
exaggerate  the  rudeness  of  this  life,  we  must  be 
careful,  on  the  other,  of  concluding  that  these  people 
were  simple  barbarians,  incapable  of  discriminating 
right  from  wrong.  Men,  even  the  wildest,  rarely 
indeed  live  entirely  without  some  law  to  guide  them, 
and  certainly  it  was  so  in  Ireland.  A  rule  was  growing 
up  and  becoming  theoretically  at  any  rate,  established, 
many  of  the  provisions  of  which  startle  us  by  the 


ANCIENT   IRISH   LAW.  2$ 

curious  modernness  of  their  tone,  so  oddly  do  they 
contrast  with  what  we  know  of  the  condition  of  civi- 
lization or  non-civilization  then  existing. 

Although  this  ancient  Irish  law  was  not  drawn  up 
until  long  after  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  it 
seems  best  to  speak  of  it  here,  as,  though  modified  by 
the  stricter  Christian  rule,  it  in  the  main  depended 
for  such  authority  as  it  possessed  upon  traditions 
existing  long  before  ;  traditions  regarded  indeed  by 
Celtic  scholars  as  tracing  their  origin  beyond  the 
arrival  of  the  first  Celt  in  Ireland,  outcomes  and  sur- 
vivals, that  is  to  say,  of  yet  earlier  Aryan  rule,  showing 
points  of  resemblance  with  the  equally  Aryan  laws  of 
India,  a  matter  of  great  interest,  carrying  our  thoughts 
back  along  the  history  of  humanity  to  a  time  when 
those  differences  which  seem  now  the  most  inherent 
and  vital  were  as  yet  undreamt  of,  and  not  one  of  the 
great  nations  of  the  modern  world  were  as  much  as 
born. 

The  two  chief  books  in  which  this  law  is  contained, 
the  "Book  of  Aicill"  and  the  "  Senchus-Mor,"  have 
only  comparatively  recently  been  translated  and  made 
available  for  English  readers.  The  law  as  there  laid 
down  was  drawn  up  and  administered  by  the  Brehons, 
who  were  the  judges  and  the  law-makers  of  the 
people,  and  whose  decision  was  appealed  to  in  all 
matters  of  dispute.  The  most  serious  flaw  of  the 
system — a  very  serious  one  it  will  be  seen — was 
that,  owing  to  the  scattered  and  tribal  existence 
prevailing,  there  was  no  strong  central  rule  beJiind  the 
Brehon,  as  there  is  behind  the  modern  judge,  ready 
and  able  to  enforce  his  decrees.     At  bottom,  force, 


26  PRE-CHRISTTAN  IRELAND. 

it  must  not  be  forgotten,  is  the  sanction  of  all  law, 
and  there  was  no  available  force  of  any  kind  then,  nor 
for  many  a  long  day  afterwards,  in  Ireland. 

I  It  was,  no  doubt,  owing  chiefly  to  this  defective 
weakness  that  a  system  of  fines  rather  than  punish- 
ments grew  up,  one  which  in  later  times  caused  much 
scandal  to  English  legal  writers.  In  such  a  society 
crime  in  fact  was  hardly  recognizable  except  in  the  form 
of  an  injury  inflicted  upon  some  person  or  persons.  An 
offence  against  the  State  there  could  not  be,  simply  be- 
cause there  was  no  State  to  be  offended.  Everything, 
from  murder  down  to  the  smallest  and  most  acciden- 

^tal  injury,  was  compensated  for  by  "  erics  "  or  fines. 
The  amount  of  these  fines  was  decided  upon  by  the 
Brehon,  who  kept  an  extraordinary  number  of  ima- 
ginary rulings,  descending  into  the  most  minute  par- 
ticulars, such  as  what  fine  was  to  be  paid  in  the  case 
of  one  person's  cat  stealing  milk  from  another  person's 
house,  what  fine  in  the  case  of  one  woman's  bees 
stinging  another  woman,  a  careful  distinction  being 
preserved  in  this  case  between  the  case  in  which  the 
sting  did  or  did  not  draw  blood  !  Even  in  the  matter 
of  fines  it  does  not  seem  clear  how  the  penalty  was 
to  be  enforced  where  the  person  on  whom  it  was 
inflicted  refused  to  submit  and  where  there  was  no 
one  at  hand  to  coerce  him  successfully. 

As  regards  ownership  of  land  early  Irish  law  is 
very  peculiar,  and  requires  to  be  carefully  studied. 
Primogeniture,  regarded  by  all  English  lawyers  trained 
under  the  feudal  system  as  the  very  basis  of  inheri- 
tance, was  simply  unknown.  Even  in  the  case  of  the 
chieftain   his  rights    belonged    only  to    himself,    and 


ANCIENT  IRISH  LAW.  27 

before  his  death  a  re-election  took  place,  when  some 
other  of  the  same  blood,  not  necessarily  his  eldest 
son,  or  even  his  son  at  all,  but  a  brother,  first  cousin, 
uncle,  or  whoever  stood  highest  in  the  estimation  of 
the  clan,  was  nominated  as  "  Tanist  "  or  successor, 
and  received  promises  of  support  from  the  rest. 

Elizabethan  writers  mention  a  stone  which  was 
placed  upon  a  hill  or  mound  having  the  shape  of  a 
foot  cut  on  it,  supposed  to  be  that  of  the  first  chief 
or  ancestor  of  the  race,  "  upon  which  stone  the  Tanist 
placing  his  foot,  took  oath  to  maintain  all  ancient 
customs  inviolably,  and  to  give  up  the  succession 
peaceably  to  his  Tanist  in  due  time." 

The  object  of  securing  a  Tanist  during  the  lifetime 
of  the  chief  was  to  hinder  its  falling  to  a  minor,  or 
some  one  unfit  to  take  up  the  chieftainship,  and  this 
continued  to  prevail  for  centuries  after  the  Anglo- 
Norman  invasion,  and  was  even  adopted  by  many 
owners  of  English  descent  who  had  become  "  meere 
Irish,"  as  the  phrase  ran,  or  "  degenerate  English." 

"The  childe  being  oftentimes  left  in  nonage,"  says 
Campion,  "  could  never  defend  his  patrimony,  but  by 
the  time  he  grow  to  a  competent  age  and  have  buried 
an  uncle  or  two,  he  also  taketh  his  turn,"  a  custom 
which,  as  he  adds,  "  breedeth  among  them  continual 
warres." 

The  entire  land  belonged  to  the  clan,  and  was 
held  theoretically  in  common,  and  a  redistribution 
made  on  the  death  of  each  owner,  though  it  seems 
doubtful  whether  so  very  inconvenient  an  arrange- 
ment could  practically  have  been  adhered  to.  All 
sons,  illegitimate  as  well  as  legitimate,  shared    and 


28  PRE-CHRISTIAN   IRELAND. 

shared  alike,  holding  the  property  between  them  in 
undivided  ownership.  It  was  less  the  actual  land 
than  the  amount  of  grazing  it  afforded  which  con- 
stituted its  value.  Even  to  this  day  a  man,  especially 
in  the  West  of  Ireland,  will  tell  you  that  he  has  "the 
grass  of  three  cows,"  or  "  the  grass  of  six  cows,"  as 
the  case  may  be. 

It  is  curious  that  the  most  distinct  ancient  rules 
concerning  the  excessive  extortion  of  rent  are,  as 
has  been  shown  by  Sir  Henry  Maine,  to  be  found 
in  the  "  Senchus  Mor."  Under  its  regulations  three 
rents  are  enumerated — namely,  the  rack  rent  to  be 
extorted  from  one  of  a  strange  tribe  ;  the  fair  rent 
from  one  of  the  same  tribe  ;  and  the  stipulated  rent 
to  be  paid  equally  to  either.  The  Irish  clan  or  sept 
was  a  very  loose,  and  in  many  cases  irregular, 
structure,  embracing  even  those  who  were  practically 
undistinguishable  from  slaves,  yet  from  none  of  these 
could  any  but  2ifair  or  customary  rent  be  demanded. 
It  was  only  when  those  who  by  no  fiction  could  be 
supposed  to  belong  to  the  clan  sought  for  land  that 
the  best  price  attainable  might  be  extorted  and 
insisted  upon. 

In  so  primitive  a  state  of  society  such  persons  were 
almost  sure  to  be  outcasts,  thrown  upon  the  world 
either  by  the  breaking  up  of  other  clans  or  by  their 
own  misdoings.  A  man  of  this  class  was  generally 
what  was  known  as  a  "  Fuidhar  "  or  "  broken  man," 
and  answered  in  some  respects  to  the  slave  or  the 
serf  of  the  early  English  village  community.  Like 
him  he  seems  to  have  been  his  lord's  or  chief's  chattel, 
and   if  killed  or  injured  the  fine  or  "eric"  was  paid 


THE   FAMILY.  29 

not  to  his  own  family,  but  to  his  master.  Such  men 
were  usually  settled  by  the  chief  upon  the  unap- 
propriated tribal  lands  over  which  his  own  authority 
tended  to  increase.  This  Fuidhar  class  from  the 
first  seem  to  have  been  very  numerous,  and  de- 
pending as  they  did  absolutely  upon  the  chief,  there 
grew  up  by  degrees  that  class  of  armed  retainers — 
kerns  and  galloglasses,  they  were  called  in  later 
times — who  surrounded  every  important  chief,  whether 
of  English  or  Irish  descent,  and  were  by  them  quar- 
tered forcibly  in  war  time  upon  others,  and  so  there 
grew  up  that  system  of  "  coyne  and  livery,"  or  forced 
entertainment  for  horse  and  men,  which  is  to  be  met 
with  again  and  again  throughout  Irish  history,  and 
which  undoubtedly  was  one  of  the  greatest  curses  of 
the  country,  tending  more  perhaps  than  any  other 
single  cause  to  keep  its  people  at  the  lowest  possible 
condition  of  starvation  and  misery. 
■^  No  system  of  representation  seems  ever  to  have 
prevailed  in  Ireland.  That  idea  is,  in  fact,  almost 
purely  Teutonic,  and  seems  never  to  have  sprung  up 
spontaneously  amongst  any  Celtic  people.  The  family 
v/as  the  real  root.  Every  head  of  a  family  ruled  his 
own  household,  and  submitted  in  his  turn  to  the  rule 
of  his  chief  Blood-relationship,  including  fosterage, 
was  the  only  real  and  binding  union ;  that  larger  con- 
nection known  as  the  clan  or  sept,  having  the  smaller 
one  of  the  family  for  its  basis,  as  was  the  case  also 
amongst  the  clans  of  the  Scotch  highlands.  Theo- 
retically, all  members  of  a  clan,  high  and  low  alike, 
were  held  to  be  the  descendants  of  a  common  ancestor, 
and  in  this  way  to  have  a  real  and  direct  claim  upon 


36  PRE-CHRISTIAN  IRELAND. 

one  another.  If  a  man  was  not  in  some  degree  akin 
to  another  he  was  no  better  than  a  beast,  and  might 
be  killed  like  one  without  compunction  whenever 
occasion  arose. 

Everything  thus  began  and  centred  around  the 
tribe  or  sept.  The  whole  theory  of  life  was  purely 
local.  The  bare  right  of  existence  extended  only  a 
{qw  miles  from  your  own  door,  to  the  men  who  bore 
the  same  name  as  yourself.  Beyond  that  nothing 
was  sacred ;  neither  age  nor  sex,  neither  life  nor 
goods,  not  even  in  later  times  the  churches  themselves. 
Like  his  cousin  of  the  Scotch  Highlands,  the  Irish 
tribesman's  life  was  one  perpetual  carnival  of  fighting, 
burning,  raiding,  plundering,  and  he  who  plundered 
oftenest  was  the  finest  hero. 

All  this  must  be  steadily  borne  in  mind  as  it 
enables  us  to  understand,  as  nothing  else  will,  that 
almost  insane  joy  in  and  lust  for  fighting,  that  marked 
inability  to  settle  down  to  orderly  life  which  runs 
through  all  Irish  history  from  the  beginning  almost 
to  the  very  end. 

Patriotism,  too,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  in  the 
first  instance  only  an  idea,  and  the  narrowest  of  local 
jealousies  may  be,  and  often  are,  forms  merely  of  the 
same  impulse.  To  men  living  in  one  of  these  small 
isolated  communities,  each  under  the  rule  of  its  own 
petty  chieftain,  it  was  natural  and  perhaps  inevitable 
that  the  sense  of  connection  with  those  outside  their 
own  community  should  have  been  remarkably  slight, 
and  of  nationality,  as  we  understand  the  word,  quite 
non-existent.  Their  own  little  circle  of  hills  and 
valleys,  their  own  forests  and    pasturage  was   their 


TRIBAL   LIFE. 


31 


world,  the  only  one  practically  of  which  they  had  any 
cognizance.  To  its  scattered  inhabitants  of  that 
day  little  Ireland  must  have  seemed  a  region  of 
incalculable  extent,  filled  with  enemies  to  kill  or 
to  be  killed  by  ;  a  region  in  which  a  man  might 
wander  from  sunrise  to  sunset  yet  never  reach  the 
end,  nay,  for  days  together  without  coming  to  a 
second  sea.  As  Greece  to  a  Greek  of  one  of  its 
smaller  states  it  seemed  vast  simply  because  he  had 
never  in  his  own  person  explored  its  limits. 


MOUTH   OF  SEPULCHRAL  CHAMBER    AT   DOWTH,    NEW  GRANGE. 


IV. 

ST.    PATRICK   THE   MISSIONARY. 

But  a  new  element  was  about  to  appear  upon  the 
troubled  stage,  and  a  new  figure,  one  whose  doings, 
however  liberally  we  may  discount  the  more  purely 
supernatural  part  of  them,  strikes  us  even  now  as 
little  short  of  miraculous.  There  are  plenty  of 
heathen  countries  still  ;  plenty  of  missionaries  too  ; 
but  a  missionary  at  whose  word  an  entire  island — a 
heathen  country  given  up,  it  must  be  remembered,  to 
exceedingly  heathen  practices — resigns  its  own  creed, 
and  that  missionary,  too,  no  king,  no  warrior,  but  a 
mere  unarmed  stranger,  without  power  to  enforce  one 
of  the  decrees  he  proclaimed  so  authoritatively,  is  a 
phenomenon  which  we  should  find  some  little  difficulty 
now,  or,  indeed,  at  any  time,  in  paralleling. 

In  one  respect  St.  Patrick  was  less  fortunate  than 
his  equally  illustrious  successor,  Columba,  since  he 
found  no  contemporary,  or  nearly  contemporary 
chronicler,  to  write  his  story  ;  the  consequence  being 
that  it  has  become  so  overgrown  with  pious  myths, 
so  tangled  and  matted  with  portents  and  miracles, 
that  it  is  often  difficult  for  us  to  see  any  real  substance 
or  outline  below  them  at  all. 


HIS  EARLY  LIFE.  33 

What  little  direct  knowledge  we  have  is  derived 
from  a  famous  Irish  manuscript  known  as  "The  Book 
of  Armagh,"  which  contains,  amongst  other  things,  a 
Confession  and  an  Epistle,  believed  by  some  authori- 
ties to  have  been  actually  written  by  St.  Patrick  him- 
self, which  was  copied  as  it  now  stands  by  a  monkish 
scribe  early  in  the  eighth  century.  It  also  contains 
a  life  of  the  saint  from  which  the  accounts  of  his  later 
historians  have  been  chiefly  drawn. 

According  to  the  account  now  generally  accepted 
he  was  born  about  the  year  390,  tliough  as  this  would 
make  him  well  over  a  hundred  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  perhaps  400  would  be  the  safest  date  ;  was  a 
native,  not  as  formerly  believed  of  Gaul,  but  of  Dum- 
barton upon  the  Clyde,  whence  he  got  carried  off  to 
Ireland  in  a  filibustering  raid,  became  the  slave  of  one 
Milcho,  an  inferior  chieftain,  and  herded  his  master's 
sheep  upon  the  Slemish  mountains  in  Antrim. 

Seven  or  eight  years  later  he  escaped,  got  back  to 
Britain,  was  ordainqd,  afterwards  went  to  Gaul, 
and,  according  to  one  account,  to  Italy.  But  the 
thought  of  the  country  of  his  captivity  seems  to  have 
remained  upon  his  mind  and  to  have  haunted  his 
sleeping  and  waking  thoughts.  The  unborn  children 
of  the  pagan  island  seemed  to  stretch  our  their  hands 
for  help  to  him.  At  last  the  inward  impulse  grew  too 
strong  to  be  resisted,  and  accompanied  by  a  few  fol- 
lowers, he  set  foot  first  on  the  coast  of  Wicklow  where 
another  missionary,  Paladius,  had  before  attempted 
vainly  to  land,  and  being  badly  received  there,  took 
boat  again,  and  landed  finally  at  the  entrance  of 
Strangford  Lough. 


34  ST.   PATRICK    THE   MISSIONARY. 

From  this  point  he  made  his  way  on  foot  to  Meath, 
where  the  king  Laoghaire  was  holding  a  pagan  festival, 
and  stopped  to  keep  Easter  on  the  hill  of  Slane  where 
he  lit  a  fire.  This  fire  being  seen  from  the  hill  of  Tara 
aroused  great  anger,  as  no  lights  were  by  law  allowed 
to  be  shown  before  the  king's  beacon  was  lit.  Laoghaire 
accordingly  sent  to  know  the  meaning  of  this  in- 
solence and  to  have  St.  Patrick  brought  before  him. 
St.  Patrick's  chronicler,  Maccumacthenius  (one  could 
wish  that  he  had  been  contented  with  a  shorter 
name  !),  tells  that  as  the  saint  drew  nigh  to  Tara,  many 
prodigies  took  place.  The  earth  shook,  darkness  fell, 
and  certain  of  the  magicians  who  opposed  him  were 
seized  and  tossed  into  the  air.  One  prodigy  certainly 
took  place,  for  he  seems  to  have  won  converts  from 
the  first.  A  large  number  appear  to  have  been 
gained  upon  the  spot,  and  before  long  the  greater 
part  of  Meath  had  accepted  the  new  creed,  although 
its  king,  Laoghaire  himself  remained  a  sturdy  pagan 
until  his  death. 

From  Tara  St.  Patrick  went  to  Connaught,  a 
province  to  v/hich  he  seems  to  have  been  drawn 
from  the  first,  and  there  spent  eight  years,  founding 
many  churches  and  monasteries.  There  also  he  as- 
cended Croagh  Patrick,  the  tall  sugar-loaf  mountain 
which  stands  over  the  waters  of  Clew  Bay,  and  up 
to  the  summit  of  which  hundreds  of  pilgrims  still 
annually  climb  in  his  honour. 

From  Connaught  he  next  turned  his  steps  to  Ulster, 
visited  Antrim  and  Armagh,  and  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  future  cathedral  and  bishopric  in  the  latter 
place.  Wherever  he  went  converts  seem  to  have  come 


THE   NEW  REVOLUTION.  35 

in  to  him  in  crowds.  Even  the  Bards,  who  had  most 
to  lose  by  the  innovation,  appear  to  have  been  in 
many  cases  drawn  over.  They  and  the  chiefs 
gained,  the  rest  followed  unhesitatingly  ;  whole  clans 
were  baptized  at  a  time.  Never  was  spiritual  conquest 
so  astonishingly  complete ! 

The  tale  of  St.  Patrick's  doings  ;  of  his  many 
triumphs  ;  his  few  failures ;  of  the  boy  Benignus 
his  first  Irish  disciple  ;  of  his  wrestling  upon  Mount 
Cruachan  ;  of  King  Eochaidh  ;  of  the  Bard  Ossian, 
and  his  dialogues  with  the  apostle,  all  this  has  been 
excellently  rendered  into  verse  by  Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere, 
whose  "  Legends  of  St.  Patrick  "  seem  to  the  present 
writer  by  no  means  so  well  known  as  they  ought  to 
be.  The  second  poem  in  the  series,  "  The  Disbeliet 
of  Milcho,"  especially  is  one  of  great  beauty,  full  of 
wild  poetic  gleams,  and  touches  which  breathe  the 
very  breath  of  an  Irish  landscape.  Poetry  is  indeed 
the  medium  best  suited  for  the  Patrician  history. 
The  whole  tale  of  the  saint's  achievements  in  Ireland 
is  one  of  those  in  which  history  seems  to  lose  its 
own  sober  colouring,  to  become  luminous  and  half 
magical,  to  take  on  all  the  rosy  hues  of  a  myth. 

The  best  proof  of  the  effect  of  the  new  reve- 
lation is  to  be  found  in  that  extraordinary  burst  of 
enthusiasm  which  marked  the  next  few  centuries. 
The  passion  for  conversion,  for  missionary  labour  of 
all  sorts,  seems  to  have  swept  like  a  torrent  over 
the  island,  arousing  to  its  best  and  highest  point 
that  Celtic  enthusiasm  and  which  has  never,  unhap- 
pily, found  such  noble  exercise  since.  Irish  mis- 
sionaries   flung  themselves  upon  the   dogged   might 


36  ST.   PATRICK    THE   MISSIONARY. 

of  heathenism,  and  grappled  with  it  in  a  death 
struggle.  Amongst  the  Picts  of  the  Highlands,  amongst 
the  fierce  Friscians  of  the  Northern  seas,  beside  the 
Lake  of  Constance,  where  the  church  ot  St.  Gall 
still  preserves  the  name  of  another  Irish  saint,  in  the 
Black  Forest,  at  Schaffhausen,  at  Wiirtzburg,  through- 
out, in  fact,  all  Germany  and  North  Italy,  they  were 
ubiquitous.  Wherever  they  went  their  own  red-hot 
fervour  seems  to  have  melted  every  obstacle;  wher- 
ever they  went  victory  seems  to  have  crowned  their 
zeal.^ 

Discounting  as  much  as  j^ou  choose  everything  that 
seems  to  partake  of  pious  exaggeration,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  period  which  followed  the 
Christianizing  of  Ireland  was  one  of  those  shining 
epochs  of  spiritual  and  also  to  a  great  degree  intellec- 
tual enthusiasm  rare  indeed  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  Men's  hearts,  tull  of  newly -won  fervour, 
burned  to  hand  on  the  torch  in  their  turn  to  others. 
They  went  out  by  thousands,  and  they  beckoned  in 
their  converts  by  tens  of  thousands.  Irish  hospitality 
— a  quality  which  has  happily  escaped  the  tooth 
of  criticism — broke  out  then  with  a  vengeance, 
and  extended  its  hands  to  half  a  continent.  From 
Gaul,  from  Britain,  from  Germany,  from  dozens  of 
scattered  places  throughout  the  wide  dominions  of 
Charlemagne,  the  students  came  ;  were  kept,  as 
Bede  expressly  tells  us,  free  of  cost  in  the  Irish 
monasteries,  and  drew  their  first  inspirations  in  the 
Irish  schools.     Even  now,  after  the  lapse  of  all  these 

'  For  an  account  of  Irish  missionaries  in  Germany,  see  Mr.  Baring- 
rrould's  "  Germany,"  in  this  series,  p.  46. 


CELTIC    CHKISTIAXITV.  37 

centuries,  many  of  th'e  places  whence  they  came 
still  reverberate  faintly  with  the  memory  of  that  time. 
Before  plunging  into  that  weltering  tangle  of 
confusion  which  makes  up  what  we  call  Irish  history, 
one  may  be  forgiven  for  lingering  a  little  at  this 
point,  even  at  the  risk  of  some  slight  over-balance  of 
proportion.  With  so  dark  a  road  before  us,  it  seems 
good  to  remember  that  the  energies  of  Irishmen  were 
not,  as  seems  sometimes  to  be  concluded,  always  and 
of  necessity  directed  to  injuring  themselves  or  tor- 
menting their  rulers !  Neither  was  this  period  by 
any  means  a  short  one.  It  was  no  mere  "  flash  in 
the  pan;"  no  "  small  pot  soon  hot "  enthusiasm,  but  a 
steady  flame  which  burned  undimmed  for  centuries. 
"  During  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries,  and  part 
of  the  ninth,"  says' Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  not  certainly  a 
prejudiced  writer,  "  Ireland  played  a  really  great 
part  in  European  history."  "  The  new  religious 
houses,"  says  Mr.  Green  in  his  Short  History,"  looked 
for  their  ecclesiastical  traditions,  not  to  Rome,  but  to 
Ireland,  and  quoted  for  their  guidance  the  instructions 
not  of  Gregory,  but  of  Columba."  "  For  a  time,"  he 
adds,  "  it  seemed  as  if  the  course  of  the  world's 
history  was  to  be  changed,  as  if  that  older  Celtic  race 
which  the  Roman  and  German  had  swept  before 
them,  had  turned  to  the  moral  conquest  of  their  con- 
querors, as  if  Celtic  and  not  Latin  Christianity  was  to 
mould  the  destinies  of  the  Church  of  the  West." 


V. 

THE   FIRST   IRISH    MONASTERIES. 

At  home  during  the  same  period  the  chief  events 
were  the  founding  of  monasteries,  and  the  settling 
down  of  monastic  communities,  every  such  monastery 
becoming  the  protector  and  teacher  of  the  little 
Christian  community  in  its  vicinity,  educating  its 
own  sons,  and  sending  them  out  as  a  bee  sends  its 
swarms,  to  settle  upon  new  ground,  and  to  fertilize 
the  flowers  of  distant  harvest  fields. 

At  one  time,  "  The  Tribes  of  the  Saints  "  seem  to 
have  increased  to  such  an  extent  that  they  threa- 
tened to  absorb  all  others.  In  West  Ireland  especially, 
little  hermitages  sprung  up  in  companies  of  dozens 
and  hundreds,  all  over  the  rock-strewn  wastes,  and 
along  the  sad  shores  of  the  Atlantic,  dotting  them- 
selves like  sea  gulls  upon  barren  points  of  rock,  or 
upon  sandy  wastes  which  would  barely  have  sufficed, 
one  might  think,  to  feed  a  goat.  We  see  their  re- 
mains still — so  tiny,  yet  so  enduring — in  the  Isles  of 
Arran ;  upon  a  dozen  rocky  points  all  round  the 
bleak  edges  of  Connemara  ;  in  the  wild  mountain 
glens  of  the  Burren — set  often  with  an  admirable 
selection  of  site,  in  some  sloping  dell  with,  perhaps, 


H 

■a 

b 

^ 

O 

^' 

> 

ss 

es 

-<i' 

w 

'So 

H 

^ 

S 

w 

s 

o 

"« 

« 

z 

S 

<s 

en 

tn 

^ 

O 

oi 

u 

46  The  first  irish  monasteries. 

a  stream  slipping  lightly  by  and  hurrying  to  lose 
itself  in  the  ground,  always  with  a  well  or  spring 
brimming  freshly  over — an  object  still  of  reverence  to 
the  neighbouring  peasants.  Thanks  to  the  innate 
stability  of  their  material,  thanks,  too,  to  the  super- 
abundance of  stone  in  these  regions,  which  makes  them 
no  temptation  to  the  despoiler,  they  remain,  roofless 
but  otherwise  pretty  much  as  they  were.  We  can 
look  back  across  a  dozen  centuries  with  hardly  the 
change  of  a  detail. 

In  these  little  western  monasteries  each  cell  stood 
as  a  rule  by  itself,  containing — one  would  say  very 
tightly  containing — a  single  inmate.  In  other  places, 
large  buildings,  however,  were  erected,  and  great 
numbers  of  monks  lived  together.  Some  of  these 
larger  communities  are  stated  to  have  actually  con- 
tained several  thousand  brethren,  and  though  this 
sounds  like  an  exaggeration,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
they  were  enormously  populous.  The  native  mode  of 
existence  lent  itself,  in  fact,  very  readily  to  the  arrange- 
ment. It  was  merely  the  clan  or  sept  re- organized  upon 
a  religious  footing.  "Les  premieres  grands  monasteres 
de  ITrelande,"  says  M.  de  Montalembert  in  his 
"  Moines  d'Occident,"  "  ne  furent  done  autre  chose  a 
vrai  dire  qui  des  clans,  reorganises  sous  une  forme 
religieuse."  New  clans,  that  is  to  say,  cut  out  of  the 
old  ones,  their  fealty  simply  transferred  from  a  chief 
to  an  abbot,  who  was  almost  invariably  in  the  first 
instance  of  chieftain  blood.  "  Le  prince,  en  se  faisant 
moine,  devenait  naturellement  abbe,  et  restait  ainsi 
dans  la  vie  monastique,  ce  qu'il  avait  ete  dans  la  vie 
seculiere  le  chef  de  sa  race  et  de  son  clan." 


EASY   PROPAGATION   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 


4T 


There  was  thus  nothing  to  jar  with  that  sense  of 
continuity,  that  inborn  love  of  the  past,  of  old  ways, 
old  habits,  old  modes  of  thought  which  made  and 
still  makes  an  Irishman — be  he  never  so  pronounced 
a  republican — the  deepest  at  heart  of  Conservatives. 
Whereas  every  later  change  of  faith  which  has  been 
endeavoured  to  be  forced  upon  the  country  has  met 
with  a  steady  and  undeviating  resistance,  Christianity, 
the  greatest  change  of  all,  seems  to  have  brought 
with  it  from  the  first  no  sense  of  dislocation.  It  as- 
similated itself  quietly,  and  as  it  were  naturally,  with 
what  it  found.  Under  the  prudent  guidance  of  its 
first  propagators,  it  simply  gathered  to  itself  all  the 
earlier  objects  of  belief,  and  with  merely  the  change 
of  a  name,  sanctified  and  turned  them  to  its  own  uses. 


ST.    KEVIN  S   CHURCH,    GLENDALOUGH. 


VI. 


ST.   COLUMBA   AND   THE   WESTERN   CHURCH. 


About  fifty  years  after  the  death  of  St.  Patrick  a 
new  missionary  arose,  one  who  was  destined  to  carry 
the  work  which  he  had  begun  yet  further,  to  become 
indeed  the  founder  of  what  for  centuries  was  the  real 
metropoHs  and  centre  of  Western  Christendom. 

In  521  A.D.,  St.  Columba  was  born  in  Donegal,  of 
the  royal  race,  say  the  annalists,  of  Hy-Nial — of 
the  royal  race,  at  any  rate,  of  the  great  workers,  doers, 
and  thinkers  all  the  world  over.  In  565,  forty-four 
years  later,  he  left  Ireland  with  twelve  companions 
(the  apostolic  number),  and  started  on  his  memor- 
able journey  to  Scotland,  a  date  of  immeasurable 
importance  in  the  history  of  Western  Christianity. 

In  that  dense  fog  which  hangs  over  these  early 
times — thick  enough  to  try  even  the  most  penetra- 
ting eyesight — there  is  a  curious  and  indescribable 
pleasure  in  coming  upon  so  definite,  so  living,  so 
breathing  a  figure  as  that  of  St.  Columba.  In  writing 
the  early  history  of  Ireland,  one  of  the  greatest 
difficulties  which  the  historian  —  great  or  small — • 
has  to  encounter  is  to  be  found  in  that  curious  un- 
reality, that  tantalizing  sense  of  illusiveness  and  inde- 


CHARACTER   OF  ST.   COLUMBA.  43 

finiteness  which  seems  to  envelope  every  figure  whose 
name  crops  up  on  his  pages.  Even  four  hundred  years 
later  the  name  of  a  really  great  prince  and  warrior  like 
Brian  Boru,  or  Boruma,  awakens  no  particular  sense 
of  reality,  nay  as  often  as  not  is  met  by  a  smile  of 
incredulity.  The  existence  of  St.  Columba  no  one, 
however,  has  been  found  rash  enough  to  dispute  !  His, 
in  fact,  is  one  of  those  essentially  self-lit  figures  which 
seem  to  shed  some  of  their  own  light  upon  every  other 
they  come  in  contact  with,  even  accidentally.  Across 
the  waste  of  centuries  we  see  him  almost  as  he  appeared 
to  his  contemporaries.  There  is  something  friendly — 
as  it  were,  next-door-neighbourly — about  the  man.  If 
we  land  to-day  on  lona,  or  stand  in  any  of  the  little 
chapels  in  Donegal  which  bear  his  name,  his  presence 
seems  as  real  and  tangible  to  us  as  that  of  Tasso  at 
Ferrara  or  Petrarch  at  Avignon.  In  spite  of  that  thick 
— one  is  inclined  to  say  rank — growth  of  miracles 
which  at  times  confuse  Adamnan's  fine  portrait  of 
his  hero — cover  it  thick  as  lichens  some  monumental 
slab  of  marble — we  can  still  recognize  his  real 
lineaments  underneath.  His  great  natural  gifts ; 
his  abounding  energy;  his  characteristically  Irish 
love  for  his  native  soil  ;  for  the  beloved  "  oaks 
of  Derry."  We  see  him  in  his  goings  out  and  his 
comings  in ;  we  know  his  faults  ;  his  fiery  Celtic 
temper,  swift  to  wrath,  swift  to  forgive  when  the 
moment  of  anger  is  over.  Above  all,  we  feel  the 
charm  of  his  abounding  humanity.  Like  Sterne's 
Uncle  Toby  there  seems  to  have  been  something 
about  St.  Columba  which  "  eternally  beckoned  to  the 
unfortunate  to  come  and  take  shelter  under  him,"  and 


44      ^'iT.   COLUMBA    AND    THE    WESTERN  CHURCH. 

no  one  apparently  ever  refused  to  respond  to  that 
appeal. 

One  thing  it  is  important  hereto  have  clearly  before 
the  mind,  as  it  is  very  apt  to  be  overlooked.  At 
the  time  of  St.  Columba's  ministry,  England,  which 
during  the  lifetime  of  St.  Patrick  had  been  Roman 
and  Christian,  had  now  under  the  iron  Hail  of  its 
Saxon  conquerors  lapsed  back  into  Paganism. 
Ireland,  therefore,  which  for  a  while  had  made  a 
part  of  Christendom,  had  been  broken  short  off  by 
the  heathen  conquest  of  Britain.  It  was  now  a  small, 
isolated  fragment  of  Christendom,  with  a  great 
mass  of  heathenism  between.  We  can  easily  imagine 
what  a  stimulus  to  all  the  eager  enthusiasts  of  the 
Faith  the  consciousness  of  this  neighbourhood  must 
have  been ;  how  keen  the  desire  to  rush  to  the  assault 
and  to  replace  the  Cross  where  it  had  been  before. 

That  assault  was  not,  however,  begun  by  Ire- 
land ;  it  was  begun,  as  every  one  knows,  by  St. 
Augustine,  a  Roman  priest,  sent  by  Pope  Gregory, 
who  landed  at  Ebbsfleet,  in  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  in 
the  year  597 — thirty- two  years  after  St.  Columba 
left  Ireland.  If  the  South  of  England  owes  its 
conversion  to  Rome,  Northern  England  owes  its 
conversion  tq  Ireland,  through  the  Irish  colony  at 
lona.  Oswald,  the  king  of  Northumbria,  had  himself 
taken  refuge  in  lona  in  his  youth,  and  when  sum- 
moned to  reign  he  at  once  called  in  the  Irish  mission- 
aries, acting  himself,  we  are  told,  as  their  interpreter. 
His  whole  reign  was  one  continuous  struggle  with 
heathenism,  and  although  at  his  death  it  triumphed  for 
a  time,  in  the  end  the  faith  and  energies  of  the  mis- 


CONTROVERSIES    WITH  ROME.  45 

sionaries  carried  all  before  them.  After  the  final 
defeat  of  the  Mercians,  under  their  king  Penda,  at 
Winwoed,  in  655,  the  struggle  was  practically  over. 
Northern  and  Southern  England  were  alike  once  more 
Christian. 

One  of  the  chief  agents  in  this  result  was  the  Irish 
monk  Aidan,  wTio  had  fixed  his  seat  in  the  little 
peninsula  of  Lindisfarne,  and  from  whose  monastery, 
as  from  another  lona,  missionaries  poured  over  the 
North  of  England.  At  Lichfield,  Whitby,  and  many 
other  places  religious  houses  sprang  up,  all  owing 
their  allegiance  to  Lindisfarne,  and  through  it  to 
lona  and  Ireland. 

In  this  very  fervour  there  lay  the  seeds  of  a  new 
trouble.  A  serious  schism  arose  between  Western 
Christendom  and  the  Papacy.  Rome,  whether 
spiritually  or  temporally,  was  a  name  which  rever- 
berated with  less  awe-inspiring  sound  in  the  ears 
of  Irishmen  (even  Irish  Churchmen)  than,  probably, 
in  those  of  any  other  people  at  that  time  on  the 
globe.  They  had  never  come  under  the  tremendous 
sway  of  its  material  power,  and  until  centuries  after 
this  period — when  political  and,  so  to  speak,  accidental 
causes  drove  them  into  its  arms — its  spiritual  power 
remained  to  them  a  thing  apart,  a  foreign  element  to 
which  they  gave  at  most  a  reluctant  half  adhesion. 

From  this  it  came  about  that  early  in  the  history 
of  the  Western  Church  .serious  divisions  sprang  up 
between  it  and  the  other  churches,  already  being 
fast  welded  together  into  a  coherent  body  under 
the  yoke  and  discipline  of  Rome.  The  points  in 
dispute  do  not  strike  us  now  of  any  very  vital  im- 


46      ST.    COLUMBA    AND    THE    WESTERN   CHURCH. 

portance.  They  were  not  matters  of  creed  at  all, 
merely  of  external  rule  and  discipline.  A  vehement 
controversy  as  to  the  proper  form  of  the  tonsure, 
another  as  to  the  correct  day  for  Easter,  raged  for  more 
than  a  century  with  much  heat  on  either  side  ;  those 
churches  which  owed  their  allegiance  to  lona  clinging 
to  the  Irish  methods,  those  who  adhered  to  Rome 
vindicating  its  supreme  and  paramount  authority. 

At  the  Synod  of  Whitby,  held  in  664,  these  points 
of  dispute  came  to  a  crisis,  and  were  adjudicated  upon 
by  Oswin,  king  of  Northumbria  ;  Bishop  Colman, 
Aidan's  successor  at  Holy  Island,  maintaining  the 
authority  of  Columba  ;  Wilfrid,  a  Saxon  priest  who 
had  been  to  Rome,  that  of  St.  Peter.  Oswin's  own 
leaning  seems  at  first  to  have  been  towards  the 
former,  but  when  he  heard  of  the  great  pretensions  of 
the  Roman  saint  he  was  staggered.  "  St.  Peter,  you 
say,  holds  the  keys  of  heaven  and  hell  ?  "  he  inquired 
thoughtfully,  "  have  they  also  been  given  then  to 
St.  Columba?"  It  was  owned  with  some  reluctance 
that  the  Irish  saint  had  been  less  favoured.  "  Then  I 
give  my  verdict  for  St.  Peter,"  said  Oswin,  "lest  when 
I  reach  the  gate  of  heaven  I  find  it  shut,  and  the 
porter  refuse  to  open  to  me."  This  sounds  prudent, 
but  scarcely  serious  ;  it  seems,  however,  to  have  been 
regarded  as  serious  enough  by  the  Irish  monks.  The 
Synod  broke  up.  Colman,  with  his  Irish  brethren, 
and  a  few  English  ones  who  threw  in  their  lot  with 
them,  forsook  Lindisfarne,  and  sailed  away  for  Ireland. 
From  that  moment  the  rift  between  them  and  their 
English  brethren  grew  steadily  wider,  and  was  never 
afterwards  thoroughly  healed. 


THE   GOLDEN  AGE    OF    THE   IRISH    CHURCH.      47 

It  does  not,  however,  seem  to  have  affected  the 
position  of  the  Irish  Church  at  home,  nor  yet  to  have 
diminished  the  number  of  its  foreign  converts.     Safe 
in  its  isolation,  it  continued  to  go  on  in  its  own  way 
with  Httle   regard    to  the    rest    of    Christendom,   al- 
though   in   respect  to   the  points    chiefly   in    dispute 
it  after  a   while  submitted  to  the    Roman    decisjpn. 
Armagh  was  the  principal  spiritual  centre,  but  there 
were  other  places,   now  tiny  villages,  barely'  known 
by  name  to  the   tourist,  which  were  then  centres   of 
learning,  and  recognized  as  such,  not  alone  in  Ireland 
itself,  but   throughout  Europe.       Clonard,   Tallaght 
Clonmacnois  ;  Slane   in   Meath,  where  Dagobert  II. 
one  of  the  kings  of  France,  was  educated  ;  Kildare, 
where  the  sacred  fire — not  lamp — of  St.  Bridget  was 
kept  burning  for  centuries,  all  are  places  whose  names 
fill  a  considerable  space  in  the  fierce  dialectical  con- 
troversy of  that  fiery  theological  age.^ 
r    This  period  of  growth  slipped  all  too  quickly  away, 
but  it  has  never  been  forgotten.     It  was  the  golden 
time  to  which  men  looked  wistfully  back  when  growing 
trouble  and  discord,  attack  from  without,  and  dissen- 
sion  from  within,   had    torn   in   pieces  the    unhappy 
island  which  had  shone  like  a  beacon  through  Europe 
only  to  become  its  byword.     The  Norsemen  had  not 
yet    struck    prow    on    Irish    strand,    and    the    period 
between  the  Synod  of  Whitby  and  their  appearance 
seems  to  have  been  really  one  of  steady  moral  and 
intellectual  growth.    Heathenism  no  doubt  still  lurked 
in  obscure  places  ;  indeed   traces  of  it  may  with  no 

'  For  an  excellent  account  of  early  Irish  monastic  life  see  "  Ireland, 
and  the  Celtic  Church,"  by  Professor  G.  Stokes. 


WEST   CROSS    OF    MONASTEr:  DOICE,    CO.    T.OrTH. 


INDUSTRIES   OF   THE  MONKS.  49 

great  difficulty  still  be  discovered  in  Ireland,  but 
it  did  not  hinder  the  light  from  spreading  fast  under 
the  stimulus  which  it  had  received  from  its  first 
founders.  The  love  of  letters,  too,  sprang  up  with  the 
religion  of  a  book,  and  the  copying  of  manuscripts 
became  a  passion. 

As  in  Italy  and  elsewhere,  so  too  in  Ireland,  the 
monks  were  the  painters,  the  illuminators,  the  archi- 
tects, carvers,  gilders,  and  book-binders  of  their  time. 
While  outside  the  monastery  walls  the  fighters  were 
making  their  neighbours'  lives  a  burden  to  them, 
and  beyond  the  Irish  Sea  the  whole  world  as  then 
known  was  being  shaken  to  pieces  and  reconstructed, 
the  monk  sat  placidly  inside  at  his  work,  producing 
chalices,  crosiers,  gold  and  silver  vessels  for  the 
churches,  carving  crosses,  inditing  manuscripts  filled 
with  the  most  marvellously  dexterous  ornament ; 
works,  which,  in  spite  of  the  havoc  wrought  by  an 
almost  unbroken  series  of  devastations  which  have 
poured  over  the  doomed  island,  still  survive  to  form 
the  treasure  of  its  people.  We  can  have  very  little 
human  sympathy,  very  little  love  for  what  is  noble 
and  admirable,  if — whatever  our  creeds  or  our  politics 
— we  fail,  as  we  look  back  across  that  weary  waste 
which  separates  us  from  them,  to  extend  our  sym- 
pathy and  admiration  to  these  early  workers — pio- 
neers in  a  truly  national  undertaking  which  has  found 
only  too  few  imitators  since. 


VIL 


THE   NORTHERN   SCOURGE. 


While  from  the  fifth  to  the  eighth  century  the 
work  of  the  Irish  Church  was  thus  yearly  increasing, 
spreading  its  net  wider  and  wider,  and  numbering  its 
converts  by  thousands,  not  much  good  can  be  reported 
of  the  secular  history  of  Ireland  during  the  same 
period.  It  is  for  the  most  part  a  confused  chronicle 
of  small  feuds,  jealousies,  raids,  skirmishes,  retali- 
ations, hardly  amounting  to  the  dignity  of  war,  but 
certainly  as  distinctly  the  antipodes  of  peace. 

The  tribal  system,  which  in  its  earlier  stages  has 
been  already  explained,  had  to  some  degree  begun 
to  change  its  character.  The  struggles  between  the 
different  septs  or  clans  had  grown  into  a  struggle 
between  a  number  of  great  chieftains,  under  whose 
rule  the  lesser  ones  had  come  to  range  themselves 
upon  all  important  occasions. 

As  early  as  the  introduction  of  Christianity  Ireland 
was  already  divided  into  four  such  aggregations  of 
tribes — kingdoms  they  are  commonly  called — answer- 
ing pretty  nearly  to  the  present  four  provinces,  with 
the  addition  of  Meath,  which  was  the  appanage  of 
the  house  of  Ulster,  and  included  West  Meath,  Long- 


DOORWAY    OF    MAGHtKA   CHURCH,    LONDONDERRY. 

{From  a  draiuing  by  George  Pet  He,  LL.D.) 


52  THE  NORTHERN  SCOURGE. 

ford,  and  a  fragment  of  the  King's  County.  Of  the 
other  four  provinces,  Connaught  acknowledged  the 
rule  of  the  O'Connors,  Munster  that  of  the  O'Briens, 
Leinster  of  the  McMurroughs,  and  Ulster  of  the 
O'Neills,  who  were  also  in  theory  over-kings,  or,  as 
the  native  word  was,  Ard-Reaghs  of  the  entire  island- 
Considering  what  a  stout  fighting  race  they  proved 
in  later  ages — fighting  often  u^hen  submission  would 
have  been  the  wiser  policy — it  is  curious  that  in 
early  days  these  O'Neills  or  Hy-Nials  seem  to  have 
been  but  a  supine  race.  For  centuries  they  were 
titular  kings  of  Ireland,  yet  during  all  that  time  they 
seem  never  to  have  tried  to  transform  their  faint, 
shadowy  sceptre  into  a' real  and  active  one.  Malachy 
or  Melachlin,  the  rival  of  Brian  Boru,  seems  to  have 
been  the  most  energetic  of  the  race,  yet  he  allowed 
the  sceptre  to  be  plucked  from  his  hands  with  an 
ease  which,  judging  by  the  imperfect  light  shed  by 
the  chroniclers  over  the  transaction,  seems  to  be 
almost  unaccountable. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  how  far  that  light,  for  which 
the  Irish  monasteries  were  then  celebrated,  extended 
to  the  people  of  the  island  at  large.  With  one  ex- 
ception, little  that  can  be  called  cultivation  is,  it 
must  be  owned,  discoverable,  indeed  long  centuries 
after  this  Irish  chieftains  we  know  were  innocent 
of  the  power  of  signing  their  own  names.  That 
exception  was  in  the  case  of  music,  which  seems  to 
have  been  loved  and  studied  from  the  first.  As  far 
back  as  we  can  see  him  the  Irish  Celt  was  celebrated 
for  his  love  of  music.  In  one  of  the  earliest  extant 
annals  a  Crui^,  or  stringed  harp,  is  described  as  be- 


STATE  NORMAL  SCHt 

IRISH  MUSIC.  ^-WAagi^Clf^, 

longing  to  the  Dashda,  or  Druid  chieftain.  It  was 
square  in  form,  and  possessed  powers  wholly  or  partly 
miraculous.  One  of  its  strings,  we  are  told,  moved 
people  to  tears,  another  to  laughter.  A  harp  in 
Trinity  College,  known  as  the  harp  of  Brian  Boru, 
is  said  to  be  the  oldest  in  Europe,  and  has  thirty 
strings.  This  instrument  has  been  the  subject  of  many 
controversies,  O'Curry  doubts  it  having  belonged  to 
Brian  Boru,  and  gives  his  reasons  for  believing  that 
it  was  among  the  treasures  of  Westminster  when 
Henry  VIII.  came  to  the  throne  in  1509,  and  that 
it  suggested  the  placing  of  the  harp  in  the  arms  of 
Ireland,  and  on  the  "  harp  grotes,"  a  coinage  of  the 
period.  However  this  may  be  we  cannot  doubt  that 
music  had  early  wrought  itself  into  the  very  texture 
and  fabric  of  Irish  life  ;  airs  and  words,  wedded 
closely  together,  travelling  down  from  mouth  to 
mouth  for  countless  generations.  Every  little  valley 
and  district  may  be  said  to  have  had  its  own  tra- 
ditional melodies,  and  the  tunes  with  which  Moore 
sixty  years  ago  was  delighting  critical  audiences  had 
been  floating  unheeded  and  disregarded  about  the 
country  for  centuries. 

The  last  ten  years  of  the  eighth  century  were  very 
bad  ones  for  Ireland.  Then  for  the  first  time  the 
black  Viking  ships  were  to  be  seen  sweeping  shore- 
wards  over  the  low  grey  waves  of  the  Irish  Channel, 
laden  with  Picts,  Danes,  and  Norsemen,  "  people," 
says  an  old  historian,  "  from  their  very  cradles  dis- 
sentious,  Land  Leapers,  merciless,  soure,  and  hardie." 
They  descended  upon  Ireland  like  locusts,  and  where- 
ever  they  came  ruin,  misery,  and  disaster  followed. 


5  g 


■J       t     I 


DESTRUCTION  OF   THE   CHURCHES.  55 

Their  first  descent  appears  to  have  been  upon  an 
island,  probably  that  of  Lambay,  near  the  mouth 
of  what  is  now  Dublin  harbour.  Returning  a  few 
years  later,  sixty  of  their  ships,  according  to  the  Irish 
annalists,  entered  the  Boyne,  and  sixty  more  the  Liffy. 
These  last  were  under  the  command  of  a  leader  who 
figures  in  the  annals  as  Turgesius,  whose  identity 
has  never  been  made  very  clear,  but  who  appears  to 
be  the  same  person  known  to  Norwegian  historians 
as  Thorkels  or  Thorgist. 

Whatever  his  name  he  was  undoubtedly  a  bad 
scourge  to  Ireland.  Landing  in  Ulster,  he  burned 
the  cathedral  of  Armagh,  drove  out  St.  Patrick's 
successors,  slaughtered  the  monks,  took  possession 
of  the  whole  east  coast,  and  marching  into  the  centre 
of  the  island,  established  himself  in  a  strong  position 
near  Athlone. 

Beyond  all  other  Land  Leapers,  this  Thorgist,  or 
Turgesius,  seems  to  have  hated  the  churches.  Not 
content  with  burning  them,  and  killing  all  priests 
and  monks  he  could  find,  his  wife,  we  are  told,  took 
possession  of  the  High  Altar  at  Clonmacnois,  and 
used  it  as  a  throne  from  which  to  give  audience,  or 
to  utter  prophecies  and  incantations.  He  also  ex- 
acted a  tribute  of  "  nose  money,"  which  if  not  paid 
entailed  the  forfeit  of  the  feature  it  was  called  after. 
At  last  three  or  four  of  the  tribes  united  by  despair 
rose  against  him,  and  he  was  seized  and  slain  •  an 
event  about  which  several  versions  are  given,  but  the 
most  authentic  seems  to  be  that  he  was  taken  by 
stratagem  and  drowned  in  Lough  Owel,  near  Mul- 
lingar,  in  or  about  the  year  845. 


55  THE   NORTHERN  SCOURGE. 

He  was  not,  unfortunately,  the  last  of  the  Land 
Leapers !  More  and  more  they  came,  sweeping  in 
from  the  north,  and  all  seem  to  have  made  direct 
for  the  plunder  of  the  monasteries,  into  which  the 
piety  of  centuries  had  gathered  most  of  the  valuables 
of  the  country.  The  famous  round  towers,  or 
"  Clocthech "  of  Ireland,  have  been  credited  with  a 
hundred  fantastic  origins,  but  are  now  known  not  to 
date  from  earlier  than  about  the  eighth  or  ninth  cen- 
tury, are  always  found  in  connection  with  churches  or 
monasteries,  and  were  unquestionably  used  as  defences 
against  these  northern  invaders.  At  the  first  sight 
of  their  unholy  prows,  rising  like  water  snakes  above 
the  waves,  all  the  defenceless  inmates  and  refugees 
all  the  church  plate  and  valuables,  and  all  sickly  or 
aged  brothers  were  hurried  into  these  monastic  keeps  ; 
the  doors — set  at  a  height  of  from  ten  to  twenty  feet 
above  the  ground — securely  closed,  the  ladders  drawn 
up,  food  supplies  having  been  no  doubt  already  laid 
in,  and  a  state  of  siege  began. 

It  is  a  pity  that  the  annalists,  who  tell  us  so 
many  things  we  neither  care  to  hear  nor  much 
believe  in,  should  have  left  us  no  record  of  any  assault 
of  the  Northmen  against  one  of  these  redoubtable 
towers.  Even  at  the  present  day  they  would,  without 
ammunition,  be  remarkably  difficult  nuts  to  crack ; 
indeed,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  their  assault  could  have 
been  successfully  attempted,  save  by  the  slow  process 
of  starvation,  or  possibly  by  fires  kindled  immediately 
below  the  entrance,  and  so  by  degrees  smoking  out 
their  inmates. 

If  any  one  ever  succeeded  in  getting  into  them,  we 


58  THE   NORTHERN  SCOURGE. 

may  be  sure  the  Land  Leapers  did  !  Before  long  they 
appear  to  have  gathered  nearly  the  whole  spoil  of  the 
country  into  the  towns,  which  they  built  and  fortified 
for  themselves  at  intervals  along  the  coast.  Cork, 
Waterford,  Limerick,  Wexford,  and  Dublin,  all  owe 
their  origin  in  the  first  instance  to  the  Northmen  ; 
indeed  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  Dublin  can  never  be 
said,  save  for  very  short  periods  to  have  belonged 
to  the  Irish  at  all.  It  was  first  the  capital  of  their 
northern  invaders,  and  afterwards  that,  of  course,  of 
the  English  Government. 

Three  whole  centuries  the  Danish  power  lasted, 
and  internecine  war  raged,  a  war  during  which  almost 
every  trace  of  earlier  civilizing  influences,  all  those 
milder  habits  and  ways  of  thought,  which  Chris- 
tianity had  brought  in  and  fostered,  perished  well- 
nigh  utterly.  The  ferocity  of  the  invaders  communi- 
cated itself  to  the  invaded,  and  the  whole  history  is 
one  confused  and  continual  chronicle  of  horrors  and 
barbarities. 

An  important  distinction  must  be  made  at  this  point 
between  the  effects  of  the  Northern  invasion  in  Eng- 
land and  in  Ireland.  In  the  former  the  invaders  and 
natives  became  after  a  while  more  or  less  assimilated, 
and,  under  Canute,  an  orderly  government,  composed 
of  both  nationalities,  was,  we  know,  established.  In 
Ireland  this  was  never  the  case.  The  reason,  doubt- 
less, is  to  be  found  in  the  far  closer  similarity  of  race 
in  the  former  case  than  the  latter.  In  Ireland  the 
"  Danes,"  as  they  are  popularly  called,  were  always 
strangers,  heathen  tyrants,  hated  and  despised  op- 
pressors, who  retorted  this  scorn  and  hatred  in  the 


RAIDS   OF  THE  NORTHMEN.  59 

fullest  possible  measure  upon  their  antagonists.  From 
the  moment  of  their  appearance  down  to  the  last  we 
hear  of  them — as  long,  in  fact,  as  the  Danes  of  the 
seaport  towns  retained  any  traces  of  their  northern 
origin — so  long  they  continued  to  be  the  deadly  foes 
of  the  rest  of  the  island. 

Even  where  the  Northmen  accepted  Christianity, 
it  does  not  appear  to  have  had  any  strikingly  ame- 
liorating effect.  Thus  we  read  that  Godfrid,  son  of 
Sitric,  embraced  Christianity  in  948,  and  in  the  very 
next  year  we  discover  that  he  plundered  and  burnt 
all  the  churches  in  East  Meath,  killing  over  a  hundred 
people  who  had  taken  refuge  in  them,  and  carrying 
off  a  quantity  of  captives.  Land-leaping,  too,  con- 
tinued in  full  force.  "  The  godless  hosts  of  pagans 
swarming  o'er  the  Northern  Sea,"  continued  to  arrive 
in  fresh  and  fresh  numbers  from  their  inexhaustible 
Scandinavian  breeding  grounds — from  Norway,  from 
Sweden,  from  Denmark,  even,  it  is  said,  from  Ice- 
land. The  eighth,  ninth,  and  tenth  centuries  are,  in 
fact,  the  great  period  all  over  Europe  for  the  incursions 
of  the  Northmen — high  noon,  so  to  speak,  for  those 
fierce  and  roving  sons  of  plunder, — "  People,"  says 
an  old  historian  quaintly,  "  desperate  in  attempting 
the  conquest  of  other  Realmes,  being  very  sure  to 
finde  warmer  dwellings  anywhere  than  in  their  own 
homes." 


VIII. 

BRIAN   OF   THE   TRIBUTE. 

At  last  a  time  came  for  their  oppression  to  be 
cut  short  in  Ireland.  Two  valiant  defenders  sprang 
almost  simultaneously  into  note.  One  of  these  was 
Malachy,  or  Melachlin,  the  Ard-Reagh  and  head  of 
the  O'Neills,  the  same  Malachy  celebrated  by  Moore 
as  having  "  worn  the  collar  of  gold  which  he  won 
from  the  proud  invader."  The  other,  Brian  Boroimhe, 
commonly  known  to  English  writers  as  Brian  Boru, 
a  chieftain  of  the  royal  Dalcassian  race  of  O'Brien, 
and  the  most  important  figure  by  far  in  Irish  native 
history,  but  one  which,  like  all  others,  has  got  so 
fogged  and  dimmed  by  prejudice  and  misstatement, 
that  to  many  people  liis  name  seems  hardly  to  convey 
any  sense  of  reality  at  all. 

Poor  Brian  Boru  !  If  he  could  have  guessed 
that  he  would  have  come  to  be  regarded,  even  by 
some  who  ought  to  know  better,  as  a  sort  of  giant 
Cormoran  or  Eat-'em-alive-oh  !  a  being  out  of  a  fairy 
tale,  whom  nobody  is  expected  to  take  seriously ;  nay, 
as  a  symbol,  as  often  as  not,  for  ridiculous  and  in- 
flated pretension.  No  one  in  his  own  day  doubted 
his   existence  ;    no  one  thought   of  laughing   at  his 


SLAUGHTER   OF   THE  DANES.  6l 

name.  Had  they  done  so,  their  laughter  would  have 
come  to  a  remarkably  summary  conclusion ! 

Brian  Boroimhe,  Boruma,  or  Boru — his  name  is 
written  in  all  three  ways — was  not  only  a  real  man, 
but  he  was,  what  was  more  important,  a  real  king, 
and  not  a  mere  simulacrum  or  walking  shadow  of 
one,  like  most  of  those  who  bore  the  name  in  Ireland. 
For  once,  for  the  only  time  as  far  as  its  native  history 
is  concerned,  there  was  some  one  at  the  helm  who 
knew  how  to  rule,  and  who,  moreover,  did  rule.  His 
proceedings  were  not,  it  must  be  owned,  invariably 
regulated  upon  any  very  strict  rule  of  equity.  He 
meant  to  be  supreme,  and  to  do  so  it  was  necessary  to 
wrest  the  power  from  the  O'Neills  upon  the  one  hand, 
and  from  the  Danes  on  the  other,  and  this  he  pro- 
ceeded with  the  shortest  possible  delay  to  do. 

He  had  a  hard  struggle  at  first.  IMunster  had  been 
overrun  by  the  Danes  of  Limerick,  \vho  had  defeated 
his  brother,  Mahon,  king  of  Munster,  and  forced  him 
to  pay  tribute.  Brian  himself,  scorning  to  submit  to 
the  tyrants,  had  taken  to  the  mountains  with  a  small 
band  of  followers.  Issuing  from  this  retreat,  he  with 
some  difficulty  induced  his  brother  once  more  to 
confront  the  aggressors.  An  important  battle  was 
fought  at  Sulcost,  near  Limerick,  in  the  year  968, 
in  which  the  Danes  were  defeated,  and  fled  back  in 
confusion  to  their  walls,  the  IMunster  men,  under 
Brian,  following  fast  at  their  heels,  and  entering  at 
the  same  time.  The  Danish  town  was  seized,  the 
fighting  men  were  put  to  the  sword,  the  remainder 
fled  or  were  enslaved. 

Mahon  being  some  years  afterwards  slain,  not  by 


DEFEAT   OF  MALACHY.  63 

the  Danes,  but  by  certain  treacherous  Molloys  and 
O'Donovans,  who  had  joined  themselves  witJi  him, 
Brian  succeeded  to  the  sovereignty  of  Munster,  and 
shortly  afterwards  seized  upon  the  throne  of  Cashel, 
which,  upon  the  alternate  system  then  prevailing,  was 
at  that  time  reigned  over  by  one  of  the  Euganian 
house  of  Desmond.  Having  avenged  his  brother's 
murder  upon  the  O'Donovans,  he  next  proceeded  to 
overrun  Leinster,  rapidly  subdued  Ossory,  and  began 
to  stretch  out  his  hands  towards  the  sovereignty  of 
the  island. 

In  the  meantime  the  over-king,  Malachy,  had  de- 
feated the  Danes  at  the  battle  of  Tara,  and  was  con- 
sequently in  high  honour,  stronger  apparently  then 
any  of  his  predecessors  had  been.  In  spite  of  this 
Brian  by  degrees  prevailed.  With  doubtful  patriotism 
he  left  the  Danes  for  a  while  unpursued,  attacked 
Meath,  overran  and  wasted  Connaught,  and  returning 
suddenly  burnt  the  royal  stronghold  of  Tara.  After 
a  long  and  wearisome  struggle,  Malachy  yielded,  and 
allowed  Brian  to  become  Ard-Reagh  in  his  place, 
retaining  only  his  own  ancestral  dominions  of  Meath. 
He  seems  to  have  been  a  placable,  easy-going  maUj 
"  loving,"  say  the  annalists,  "  to  ride  a  horse  that  had 
never  been  handled  or  ridden,"  and  caring  more  for 
this  than  for  the  cares  of  the  State. 

After  this,  Brian  made  what  may  be  called  a  royal 
progress  through  the  country,  receiving  the  sub- 
mission of  the  chiefs  and  inferior  kings,  and  forcing 
them  to  acknowledge  his  authority.  In  speaking  of 
him  as  king  of  Ireland,  which  in  a  sense  he  un- 
doubtedly was,  we  must    be  careful  of  letting   our 


64  BRIAN  OF  THE   TRIBUTE. 

imaginations  carry  us  into  any  exaggerated  idea 
of  what  is  meant  by  that  word.  His  name,  "  Brian  of 
the  Tribute,"  is  our  safest,  guide,  and  enables  us  to 
understand  what  was  the  position  of  even  the  greatest 
and  most  successful  king  under  the  Celtic  system.  It 
was  the  exact  opposite  of  the  feudal  one,  and  this 
difference  proved  the  source  in  years  to  come  of 
an  enormous  amount  of  misconception,  and  of  fierce 
accusations  of  falsehood  and  treachery  flung  pro- 
fusely from  both  sides.  The  position  of  the  over- 
king  or  Ard-Reagh  was  more  nearly  allied  to  that  of 
the  early  French  suzerain  or  the  German  emperor. 
He  could  call  upon  his  vassal  or  tributary  kings  to 
aid  him  in  war  times  or  in  any  sudden  emergency, 
but,  as  regards  their  internal  arrangements — the 
government,  misgovernment,  or  non-government  of 
their  several  sub-kingdoms — they  were  free  to  act  as 
they  pleased,  and  he  was  not  understood  to  have  any 
formal  jurisdiction. 

For  all  that  Brian  was  an  unmistakable  king, 
and  proved  himself  to  be  one.  He  defeated  the 
Danes  again  and  again,  reducing  even  those  inveterate 
disturbers  of  the  peace  to  a  forced  quiescence ;  entered 
Dublin,  and  remained  there  some  time,  taking,  say 
the  annalists,  "  hostages  and  treasure."  By  the  year 
1002  Ireland  had  a  master,  one  whose  influence 
made  itself  felt  over  its  whole  surface.  For  twelve 
years  at  least  out  of  its  distracted  history  the  country 
knew  the  blessings  of  peace.  Broken  by  defeat  the 
Danish  dwellers  of  the  seaport  towns  began  to  turn 
their  energies  to  the  milder  and  more  pacific  activi- 
ties of  trade.     The  ruined  monasteries  were  getting 


66  BRIAN   OF   THE    TRIBUTE. 

rebuilt  ;  prosperity  was  beginning  to  glimmer  faintly 
upon  the  island  ;  the  chiefs,  cowed  into  submission, 
abstained  from  raiding,  or  confined  their  raids  to 
discreeter  limits.  Fortresses  were  being  built,  roads 
made,  and  bridges  repaired  in  three  at  least  of  the 
provinces.  Another  twenty  years  of  Brian's  rule  and 
the  whole  future  history  of  Ireland  might  have  been 
a  different  one. 

It  was  not  to  be  however.  The  king  was  now  old, 
and  the  work  that  he  had  begun,  and  which,  had  he 
been  followed  by  a  successor  like  himself,  might  have 
been  accomplished,  was  destined  to  crumble  like  a 
half-built  house.  The  Danes  began  to  stir  again.  A 
rebellion  had  sprung  up  in  Leinster,  the  coast- line  of 
which  was  strong-holded  at  several  points  with  Danish 
towns.  This  rebellion  they  not  only  aided  with  their 
own  strength,  but  further  appealed  for  assistance  to 
their  kinsmen  in  Northumbria,  Man,  the  Orkneys,  and 
elsewhere,  who  responded  by  sending  a  large  force 
under  Brodar,  a  Viking,  and  Sigurd  Earl  of  Orkney 
to  their  aid. 

This  force  Brian  gathered  all  his  energies  to 
oppose.  With  his  own  Munster  clansmen,  aided  by 
all  the  fighting  men  of  Meath  and  Connaught,  with 
his  five  sons  and  with  his  old  rival.  King  Malachy 
of  Meath,  fighting  under  his  banner,  he  marched 
down  to  the  strand  of  Clontarf,  which  stretches  from 
the  north  of  Dublin  to  the  out-jutting  promontory  of 
Howth,  and  there,  upon  Good  Friday,  1014,  he  en- 
countered his  Leinster  rebels  and  the  Viking  host  of 
invaders,  ten  thousand  strong  it  is  said,  and  a  great 
battle  was  fought,  a  battle  which,  beginning  before 


THE  DEFEAT  OF   THE    VIKINGS.  67 

the  dawn,  lasted  till  the  sun  was  beginning  to 
sink. 

To  understand  the  real  importance  of  this  battle, 
we  must  first  fully  realize  to  ourselves  what  a  very- 
old  quarrel  this  was.  For  three  long  weary  centuries 
Ireland  had  been  lying  bound  and  broken  under  the 
heel  of  her  pagan  oppressors,  and  only  with  great 
difficulty  and  partially  had  escaped  within  the  last 
fifteen  or  sixteen  years.  Every  wrong,  outrage,  and 
ignominy  that  could  be  inflicted  by  one  people  upon 
another  had  been  inflicted  and  would  most  assuredly 
be  inflicted  again  were  this  battle,  now  about  to  be 
fought,  lost. 

Nor  upon  the  other  side  were  the  motives  much 
less  strong.  The  Danes  of  Dublin  under  Sitric  stood 
fiercely  at  bay.  Although  their  town  was  still  their 
own,  all  the  rest  of  the  island  had  escaped  from  the 
grasp  of  their  race.  Whatever  Christianity  they 
may  occasionally  have  assumed  was  all  thrown  to 
the  winds  upon  this  great  occasion.  The  far-famed 
pagan  battle  flag,  the  Raven  Standard,  was  unfurled, 
and  floated  freely  over  the  host.  The  War-arrow 
had  been  industriously  sent  round  to  all  the  neigh- 
bouring shores,  peopled  largely  at  that  time  with  men 
of  Norse  blood.  As  the  fleet  swept  south  it  had 
gathered  in  contingents  from  every  island  along  the 
Scotch  coast,  upon  which  Viking  settlements  had  been 
established.  Manx  men,  too,  and  men  from  the  Scan- 
dinavian settlements  of  Anglesea,  Danes  under  Carle 
Canuteson,  representatives,  in  fact,  of  all  the  old  fight- 
ing pagan  blood  were  there,  and  all  gathered  together 
to  a  battle  at  once  of  races  and  of  creeds. 


68  BRIAN  OF   THE    TRIBUTE. 

On  the  Irish  side  the  command  had  been  given  by 
Brian  to  Morrogh,  his  eldest  son,  who  fifteen  years 
before  had  aided  his  father  in  gaining  a  great  victory 
over  these  same  Dublin  Danes  at  a  place  called 
Glenmama,  not  far  from  Dunlaven.  The  old  king 
himself  abstained  from  taking  any  part  in  the  battle. 
Perhaps  because  he  wished  his  son — who  already  had 
been  appointed  his  successor — to  have  all  the  glory 
and  so  to  fix  himself  yet  more  deeply  in  the  hearts 
of  his  future  subjects  ;  perhaps  because  he  felt  that 
his  strength  might  not  have  carried  him  through  the 
day  ;  perhaps — the  annalists  say  this  is  the  reason — 
because  the  day  being  Good  Friday  he  preferred 
praying  for  his  cause  rather  than  fighting  for  it. 
Whatever  the  reason  it  is  certain  that  he  remained 
in  his  tent,  which  was  pitched  on  this  occasion  not 
far  from  the  edge  of  the  great  woods  which  then 
covered  all  the  rising  ground  to  the  north-west 
of  Dublin,  beginning  at  the  bank  of  the  river 
Liffy. 

The  onset  was  not  long  delayed.  The  Vikings 
under  Sigurd  and  Brodar  fought  as  only  Vikings 
could  fight.  Like  all  battles  of  that  period  it  resolved 
itself  chiefly  into  a  succession  of  single  combats,  which 
raged  all  over  the  field,  extending,  it  is  said,  for  over 
two  miles  along  the  strand.  The  Danish  women,  and 
the  men  left  to  guard  the  town,  crowded  the  roofs, 
remaining  all  day  to  watch  the  fight.  Sigurd  of 
Orkney  was  killed  in  single  combat  by  Thorlogh,  the 
son  of  Morrogh,  and  grandson  of  Brian  ;  Armud  and 
several  of  the  other  Vikings  fell  by  the  hand  of 
Morrogh,  but  in  the  end  the   father   and  son    were 


DEATH  OF  BRIAN.  69 

both  slain,  although  the  latter  survived  long  enough 
to  witness  the  triumph  of  his  own  side. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  the  Northmen  broke  and 
fled  ;  some  to  their  ships,  some  into  the  town,  some 
into  the  open  country  beyond.  Amongst  the  latter 
Brodar,  the  Viking,  made  for  the  great  woods,  and 
in  so  doing  passed  close  to  where  the  tent  of  the 
king  had  been  fixed.  The  attendants  left  to  guard 
Brian  *liad  by  this  time  one  by  one  slipped  away  to 
join  the  fight,  and  the  old  man  was  almost  alone,  and 
kneeling,  it  is  said,  at  the  moment  on  a  rug  in  the 
front  of  his  tent.  The  sun  was  low,  but  the  slanting 
beams  fell  upon  his  bent  head  and  long  white  beard. 
One  of  Brodar's  followers  perceived  him  and  pointed 
him  out  to  his  leader,  saying  that  it  was  the  king. 
"  King,  that  is  no  king,  that  is  a  monk,  a  shaveling  !  " 
retorte  !  the  Viking,  "  It  is  not,  it  is  Brian  himself," 
was  the  answer. 

Then  Brodar  ca-ught  his  axe  and  rushed  upon  Brian. 
Taken  unawares  the  king  nevertheless  rallied  his 
strength  which  in  his  day  had  been  greater  than  that 
of  any  man  of  his  time,  and  still  only  half  risen  from 
his  knees  he  smote  the  Viking  a  blow  across  the  legs 
with  his  sword.  The  other  thereupon  lifted  his  battle- 
axe,  and  smote  the  king  upon  his  head,  cleaving  it 
down  to  the  chin,  then  fled  to  the  woods,  but  was 
caught  the  next  day  and  hacked  into  pieces  by  some 
of  the  infuriated  Irish. 

So  fell  Brian  in  the  very  moment  of  victory,  and 
when  the  combined  league  of  all  his  foes  had  fallen 
before  him.  When  the  news  reached  Armagh,  the 
bishop  and  his  clergy  came  south  as  far  as  Swords, 


70 


BRIAN   OF   THE    TRIBUTE. 


in  Meath,  where  they  met  the  corpse  of  the  king 
and  carried  it  back  to  Armagh,  where  he  was  buried, 
say  the  annaHsts,  "  in  a  new  tomb  "  with  much  weep- 
ing and  lamentation. 


CORMAC'S  CHAPEL  AND   ROUND   TOWER,    ROCK   OF  CASHEL. 


IX. 


FROM   BRIAN   TO   STRONGBOW. 


Whatever  lamentations  were  uttered  on  this 
occasion  were  certainly  not  uncalled  for,  for  a  greater 
disaster  has  rarely  befallen  any  country  or  people. 
Were  proof  wanted — which  it  hardly  is — of  that 
notorious  ill-luck  which  has  dogged  the  history  of 
Ireland  from  the  very  beginning,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find  a  better  one  than  the  result  of  this  same 
famous  battle  of  Clontarf.  Here  was  a  really  great 
victory,  a  victory  the  reverberation  of  which  rang 
through  the  whole  Scandinavian  world,  rejoicing 
]\Ialcolm  of  Scotland,  who  without  himself  striking 
a  blow,  saw  his  enemies  lying  scotched-  at  his  feet, 
so  scotched  in  fact,  that  after  the  defeat  of  Clontarf 
they  never  again  became  a  serious  peril.  Yet  as 
regards  Ireland  itself  what  was  the  result  .'*  The 
result  was  that  all  those  ligaments  of  order  which 
were  beginning  slowly  to  wind  themselves  round  it, 
were  violently  snapped  and  scattered  to  the  four 
winds.  As  long  as  Brian's  grasp  was  over  it  Ireland 
was  a  real  kingdom,  with  limitations  it  is  true,  but 
still  with  a  recognized  centre,  and  steadily  growing 
power   of  combined    and  concerted  action.      At  his 


STRUGGLE   FOR    THE   SOVEREIGNTY.  73 

death  the  whole  body  politic  was  once  more  broken 
up,  and  resolved  itself  into  its  old  anarchic  elements 
again. 

It  would  have  been  better  far  for  the  country  had 
Brian  been  defeated,  so  that  he,  his  son  Morrogh,  or 
any  capable  heir  had  survived,  better  for  it  indeed  had 
he  never  ruled  at  all  if  this  was  to  be  end.  By  his 
successful  usurpation  the  hereditary  principle — always 
a  weak  one  in  Ireland — was  broken  down.  The 
one  chance  of  a  settled  central  government  was  thus 
at  an  end.  Every  petty  chief  and  princeling  all 
over  the  island  felt  himself  capable  of  emulating  the 
achievements  of  Brian.  It  was  one  of  those  cases 
which  success  and  only  success  justifies.  Ireland 
was  pining,  as  it  had  always  pined,  as  it  continued 
ever  afterwards  to  pine,  for  a  settled  government  ; 
for  a  strong  central  rule  of  some  sort.  The  race  of 
Hy.-Nial  had  been  titular  kings  for  centuries,  but  they 
had  never  held  the  sovereignty  in  anything  but  name. 
Pushing  their  claims  aside,  and  gathering  all  power 
into  his  own  hands  Brian  had  acted  upon  a  small 
stage  the  part  of  Charlemagne  centuries  earlier  upon 
a  large  one.  He  had  succeeded,  and  in  his  success 
lay  his  justification.  With  his  death,  however,  the 
whole  edifice  which  he  had  raised  crumbled  away,  and 
anarchy  poured  in  after  it  like  a  torrent.  A  struggle 
set  in  at  once  for  the  sovereignty,  which  ended  by 
not  one  of  Brian's  sons  but  the  deposed  King  Malachy 
being  set  upon  the  throne.  Like  his  greater  rival  he 
was  however  by  this  time  a  very  old  man.  His  spirit 
had  been  broken,  and  though  the  Danes  had  been  too 
thoroughly  beaten  to  stir,  other  elements  of  disorder 


74  FROM   BRIAN   TO   STRONGBOW. 

abounded.  Risings  broke  out  in  two  of  the  provinces 
at  once,  and  at  his  death  the  confusion  became  con- 
founded.    As  a  native  rhyme  runs  : 

"After  Malachy,  son  of  Donald, 
Each  man  ruled  his  own  tribe. 
But  no  man  ruled  Erin." 

Henceforward  throughout  the  rather  more  than  a 
century  and  a  half  which  intervened  between  the 
battle  of  Clontarf  and  the  Norman  invasion,  Ireland 
remained  a  helpless  waterlogged  vessel,  with  an  unruly 
crew,  without  rudder  or  compass,  above  all,  without 
a  captain.  The  house  of  O'Brien  again  pushed  its 
way  to  the  front,  but  none  of  Brian's  descendants 
who  survived  the  day  of  Clontarf  seem  to  have 
shown  a  trace  even  of  his  capacity.  A  fierce  feud 
broke  out  shortly  after  between  Donchad,  his  son, 
and  Turlough,  one  of  his  grandsons,  and  each 
successively  caught  at  the  helm,  but  neither  suc- 
ceeding in  obtaining  the  sovereignty  of  the  entire 
island.  After  the  last-named  followed  Murhertach 
also  of  the  Dalcassian  house,  at  whose  death  the  rule 
once  more  swung  round  to  the  house  of  Hy.-Nial 
and  Donald  O'Lochlin  reigned  nominally  until  his 
death  in  1121.  Next  the  O'Connors,  of  Connaught, 
took  a  turn  at  the  sovereignty,  and  seized  possession 
of  Cashel  which  since  its  capture  by  Brian  Boroimhe 
had  been  the  exclusive  appanage  of  the  Dalcassians. 
Another  O'Lochlin,  of  the  house  of  O'Neill,  then 
appears  prominently  in  the  fray,  and  by  1156,  seems 
to  have  succeeded  in  seizing  the  over-lordship  of  the 
island,  and  so  the  tale  goes  on — a  wearisome  one, 


A    NEW  STAGE. 


75 


unrelieved  by  even  a  transitory  gleam  of  order  or 
prosperity.  At  last  it  becomes  almost  a  relief  when 
we  reach  the  name  of  Roderick  O'Connor,  and  know 
that  before  his  death  fresh  actors  will  have  entered 
upon  the  scene,  and  that  the  confused  and  baffling 
history  of  Ireland  will,  at  all  events,  have  entered 
upon  a  perfectly  new  stage. 


ROUiND   TOWER   AT   DEVENISH. 


X. 


THE   ANGLO-NORMAN   INVASION. 


The  invasion  of  Ireland  by  the  Anglo-Normans 
differs  in  several  respects  from  other  invasions  and 
conquests,  not  the  least  singular  feature  about  it 
being  that  nearly  the  whole  of  that  famous  band  of 
knightly  adventurers  who  took  part  in  it,  and  to  whose 
audacity  it  was  in  the  first  instance  due,  were  more  or 
less  closely  related  to  one  another,  either  as  brothers, 
nephews,  uncles,  or  cousins.  The  connecting  link 
between  these  variously  -  named  relations  was  one 
Nesta,  princess  of  South  Wales,  daughter  of  a  Welsh 
king.  Rice  ap  Tudor,  a  heroine  whose  adventures 
are  of  a  sufficiently  striking,  not  to  say  startling, 
character.  By  dint  of  a  succession  of  alliances,  some 
regular,  others  highly  irregular,  she  became  the  ances- 
tress of  nearly  all  the  great  Anglo-Norman  families  in 
Ireland.  Of  these  the  Fitzgeralds,  Carews,  Barrys, 
and  Cogans,  are  descended  from  her  first  husband, 
Gerald  of  Windsor.  Robert  FitzStephen,  who  plays,  as 
will  presently  be  seen,  a  prominent  part  in  the  conquest, 
was  the  son  of  her  second  husband,  Stephen,  the 
Castlelan  of  Abertivy,  while  Robert  and  Meiler  Fitz- 
Henry,  of  whom  we  shall  also  hear,  are  said  to  have 


WEST   FRONT  OF   ST.   CROXAN'S   CHURCH,    ROSCREA. 
{From  a  Photograph.) 


78  THE  ANGLO-NORMAN  INVASION. 

been  the  sons  of  no  less  a  person  than  King  Henry  I, 
of  England. 

Conspicuous  amongst  this  band  of  knights  and 
adventurers  was  one  who  was  himself  no  knight,  but 
a  priest  and  the  self-appointed  chronicler  of  the  rest, 
Gerald  de  Barri — better  known  as  Gerald  of  Wales, 
or  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  who  was  the  grandson  of 
Nesta,  through  her  daughter  Angareta. 

Giraldus  is  one  of  those  writers  whom,  to  tell  the 
truth,  we  like  a  great  deal  better  than  they  deserve. 
He  is  prejudiced  to  the  point  of  perversity,  and  gullible 
almost  to  sublimity,  uncritical  even  for  an  eminently 
uncritical  age,  accepting  and  retailing  any  and  every 
monstrous  invention,  the  more  readily  apparently  in 
proportion  to  its  monstrosity.  For  all  that — despite 
his  prejudices,  despite  even  his  often  deliberate  per- 
version of  the  truth,  it  is  difficult  to  avoid  a  certain 
kindliness  for  him.  To  the  literary  student  he  is 
indeed  a  captivating  figure.  With  his  half- Welsh,  half- 
Norman  blood  ;  with  the  nimble,  excitable,  distinctly 
Celtic  vein  constantly  discernible  in  him  ;  with  a  love 
of  fighting  which  could  hardly  have  been  exceeded  by 
the  doughtiest  of  the  knights,  his  cousins  and  brothers  ; 
with  a  pen  that  seems  to  fly  like  an  arrow  across  the 
page  ;  with  a  conceit  which  knows  neither  stint  nor 
limit,  he  is  the  most  entertaining,  the  most  vividly 
alive  of  chroniclers;  no  historian  certainly  in  any  rigid 
sense  of  the  word,  but  the  first,  as  he  was  also  unques- 
tionably the  chief  and  prince  of  war  correspondents. 

Whether  we  like  him  or  not,  we  at  any  rate  cannot 
dispense  with  him,  seeing  that  nearly  everything  we 
know  of  the  Ireland  of  the  Conquest,  we  know  from 


GIRALDUS — THE   IRISH  CHURCH.  79 

those  marvellous  pages  of  his,  which,  if  often  ex- 
asperating, are  at  any  rate  never  dull.  In  them,  as 
in  a  mirror,  we  see  how,  when,  and  where  the  whole 
plan  of  the  campaign  was  laid  ;  who  took  part  in  it  ; 
what  they  said,  did,  projected;  their  very  motives  and 
thoughts — the  whole  thing  stands  out  fresh  and  alive 
as  if  it  had  happened  yesterday. 

There  were  no  lack  of  motives,  any  of  which  would 
have  been  temptation  enough  for  invasion.  To  the 
pious  it  took  on  the  alluring  guise  of  a  Crusade.  The 
Irish  Church,  which  had  obtained  such  glowing  fame 
in  its  early  clays,  had  long  since,  as  we  have  seen, 
grown  into  very  bad  repute  with  Rome.  Despite 
that  halo  of  early  sanctity,  she  was  held  to  be  seri- 
ously tainted  with  heresy.  She  allowed  bishops  to 
be  irregularly  multiplied,  and  consecrated  contrary 
to  the  Roman  rule  by  one  bishop  only ;  tithes  and 
fiistfruits  were  not  collected  with  any  regularity  ; 
above  all,  the  collection  of  Peter's  pence,  being  the 
sum  of  one  penny  due  from  every  household,  was 
always  scandalously  in  arrears,  nay,  often  no  attempt 
was  made  to  collect  it  at  all.  She  did  many  wrong 
things,  but  it  may  shrewdly  be  suspected  that  this 
was  one  of  the  very  worst  of  them. 

It  is  not  a  little  edifying  at  this  juncture  to  find  the 
Danes  of  Dublin  amongst  those  who  were  enlisted  upon 
the  orthodox  side.  Cut  off  by  mutual  hatred  rather 
than  theological  differences  from  the  Church  of  Ireland, 
they  had  for  some  time  back  been  regularly  applying 
to  Canterbury  for  their  supply  of  priests.  These  priests 
upon  being  sent  over  painted  the  condition  of  Irish 
heterodoxy  in  tints  of  the  deepest  black  for  their  own 


WEST   DOORWAY   OF   FRESHFORD   CHURCH,    CO.    KILKENNY. 
[From  a  Photograph.) 


DERMOT  MCMURROUGH.  8 1 

countrymen.  Even  before  this  there  had  been  grave 
complaints.  Lanfranc,  Anselm,  St.  Bernard  of  Clair- 
vaux,  all  had  had  their  theological  ire  aroused  against 
the  Irish  recusants.  Many  of  the  Irish  ecclesiastics 
themselves  seem  to  have  desired  that  closer  union 
with  Rome,  which  could  only  be  brought  about  by 
bringing  Ireland  under  the  power  of  a  sworn  son  of 
the  Church.  Henry  I, — little  as  that  most  secular- 
minded  of  monarchs  cared  probably  for  the  more 
purely  theological  question — was  fully  alive  to  its 
value  as  supporting  his  own  claims.  He  obtained 
from  Pope  Hadrian  IV.  (the  Englishman  Brake- 
speare),  a  Bull  sanctioning  and  approving  of  the  con- 
quest of  Ireland  as  prompted  by  "  the  ardour  of  faith 
and  love  of  religion,"  in  which  Bull  he  is  desired  to 
enter  the  island  and  therein  execute  "  whatever  shall 
pertain  to  the  honour  of  God,  and  the  welfare  of  the 
land." 

Fourteen  years  elapsed  before  the  enterprise  thus 
warmly  commended  was  carried  into  effect.  The 
story  of  Dermot  McMurrough,  king  of  Leinster,  and 
his  part  in  the  invasion,  has  often  been  told,  and  does 
not,  I  think,  need  dwelling  upon  at  any  great  length. 
He  was  a  brutal,  violent-tempered  savage,  detested 
in  his  own  country,  and  especially  by  his  unfortunate 
subjects  in  Leinster,  How  he  foully  wronged  the 
honour  of  O'Rorke,  a  chieftain  of  Connaught ;  how, 
for  this  and  other  offences,  he  was  upon  the  accession 
of  Roderick  O'Connor  driven  away  from  Ireland  ;  how 
he  fled  to  England  to  do  homage  to  Henry,  and  seek 
his  protection  ;  how,  finding  him  gone  to  Aquitaine, 
he  followed  him  there,  and  in  return  for  his  vows  of 


82  THE  ANGLO-NORMAN  INVASION. 

allegiance  received  letters  authorizincr  the  king's 
subjects  to  enlist  if  they  choose  for  the  Irish  service  ; 
how  armed  with  these  he  went  to  Wales,  and  there 
succeeded  in  recruiting  a  band  of  mixed  Norman  and 
Norman-Welsh  adventurers — all  this  is  recorded  at 
large  in  the  histories. 

Of  the  recruits  thus  enlisted,  the  most  important 
was  Robert  de  Clair,  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  Chep- 
stow, nicknamed  by  his  contemporaries,  Strongbow, 
whom  Dermot  met  at  Bristol,  and  won  over  by  a 
double  bribe — the  hand,  namely,  of  his  daughter 
Eva,  and  the  succession  to  the  sovereignty  of  Leinster 
— a  succession  which,  upon  the  Irish  mode  of  election, 
he  had,  it  may  be  observed,  no  shadow  of  right  to 
dispose  of. 

Giraldus,  who  seems  to  have  been  himself  in 
Wales  at  the  time,  speaks  sentimentally  of  the  unfor- 
tunate exile,  and  describes  him  inhaling  the  scent  of 
his  beloved  country  from  the  Welsh  coast,  and  feasting 
his  eyes  tenderly  upon  his  own  land  :  "  Although  the 
distance,"  he  more  prosaically  adds,  "  being  very  great, 
it  was  difficult  to  distinguish  mountains  from  clouds." 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Dermot  McMurrough,  we  may 
be  sure,  was  not  the  person  to  do  anything  of  the 
sort.  He  was  simply  hungry — as  a  wild  beast  or  a 
savage  is  hungry — for  revenge,  and  would  have  plunged 
into  any  number  of  perjuries,  or  have  bound  himself  to 
give  away  any  amount  of  property  he  had  no  right  to 
dispose  of  in  order  to  get  it.  He  could  safely  trust, 
too,  he  knew,  to  the  ignorance  of  his  new  allies  as 
to  what  was  or  was  not  a  legal  transfer  in  Ireland. 
His  purpose  achieved,  "  inflamed,"  says  Giraldus, 


ASSAULT   ON   WEXFORD.  83 

"with  the  desire  to  see  his  native  land,"  but  really 
the  better  to  concoct  his  plans,  he  returned  home, 
landing  a  little  south  of  Arklow  Head,  and  arriving 
at  Ferns,  where  he  was  hospitably  entertained  during 
the  winter  by  its  bishop.  The  following  spring,  in 
the  month  of  May,  the  first  instalment  of  the  invaders 
arrived  under  Robert  FitzStephen,  a  small  fleet  of 
Welsh  boats  landing  them  in  a  creek  of  the  bay  of 
Bannow,  where  a  chasm  between  the  rocks  was  long 
known  as  "  FitzStephen's  stride." 

Here  they  were  met  by  Donald  McMurrough,  son 
of  Dermot,  and  ten  days  later  drew  up  under  the 
walls  of  Wexford,  having  so  far  encountered  no 
opposition. 

In  this  old  Danish  town  a  stout  fight  was  made. 
The  townsfolk,  no  longer  Vikings  but  simple  traders, 
did  what  they  could  in  their  own  defence.  They 
burnt  their  suburbs,  consisting  doubtless  of  rude 
wooden  huts  ;  shut  the  gates,  and  upon  the  first  two 
assaults  drove  back  the  assailants.  So  violently  were 
they  repelled,  "that  they  withdrew,"  Giraldus  tells 
us,  "  in  all  great  haste  from  the  walls."  His  own 
younger  brother,  Robert  de  Barri,  was  amongst  the 
wounded,  a  great  stone  falling  upon  his  helmet  and 
tumbling  him  headlong  into  one  of  the  ditches,  from 
the  effects  of  which  blow,  that  careful  historian  informs 
us  incidentally,  "  Sixteen  years  later  all  his  jaw  teeth 
fell  out  ! " 

Next  morning,  after  mass,  they  renewed  the  as- 
sault ;  this  time  with  more  circumspection.  Now 
there  were  at  that  time,  as  it  happened,  two  bishops  in 
the  town,  who  devoted  their  energies  to  endeavouring 


84  THE   ANGLO-NORMAN  INVASION. 

to  induce  the  citizens  to  make  peace.  In  this  at- 
tempt they  were  successful,  more  successful  than  might 
have  been  expected  with  men  descended  from  the 
old  Land  Leapers.  Wexford  opened  its  gates,  its 
townsmen  submitting  to  Dermot,  who  thereupon  pre- 
sented the  town  to  his  allies,  FitzStephen,  true  to  his 
Norman  instincts,  proceeding  forthwith  to  build  a 
castle  upon  the  rock  of  Carneg,  at  the  narrowest  point 
of  the  river  Slaney,  the  first  of  that  large  crop  of 
castles  which  subsequently  sprang  up  upon  Irish  soil. 

The  next  sharers  of  the  struggle  were  the  wild 
Ossory  clans,  who  gathered  to  the  defence  of  their 
territory  under  Donough  McPatrick,  an  old  and 
especially  hated  enemy  of  Dermot's.  The  latter  had 
now  three  thousand  men  at  his  back,  in  addition 
to  his  Welsh  and  Norman  allies.  The  Ossory  men 
fought,  as  Giraldus  admits,  with  furious  valour,  but 
upon  rashly  venturing  out  of  their  own  forests  into 
the  open,  were  charged  by  FitzStephen,  whose  horse- 
men defeated  them,  killing  a  great  number,  over  two 
hundred  heads  being  collected  and  laid  at  the  feet  of 
Dermot,  who,  "  turning  them  over,  one  by  one,  to 
recognize  them,  lifted  his  hands  to  heaven  in  excess 
of  joy,  and  with  a  loud  voice  returned  thanks  to  God 
most  High."     So  pious  was  Dermot ! 

After  this,  finding  that  the  country  at  large  was 
beginning  to  take  some  note  of  their  proceedings, 
the  invaders  fel  back  upon  Ferns,  which  they  forti- 
fied according  to  the  science  of  the  age  under  the 
superintendence  of  Robert  FitzStephen.  Roderick 
O'Connor,  the  Ard-Reagh,  was  by  this  time  not 
unnaturally    beginning    to    get    alarmed,    and    had 


DECISION  OF  STRONGBOW.  85 

gathered  his  men  together  against  the  invaders.  The 
winter,  however,  was  now  at  hand,  and  a  temporary 
peace  was  accordingly  patched  up  ;  Lcinster  being 
restored  to  Dermot  on  condition  of  his  acknowledging 
the  over-lordship  of  Roderick.  Giraldus  recounts  at 
much  length  the  speeches  made  upon  both  sides  on 
this  occasion  ;  the  martial  addresses  to  the  troops, 
the  many  classical  and  flowery  quotations,  which  last 
he  is  good  enough  to  bestow  upon  the  unlucky 
Roderick  no  less  than  upon  his  own  allies.  Seeing, 
probably,  that  all  were  alike  imaginary,  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  delay  to  record  them. 

The  next  to  arrive  upon  the  scene  was  Maurice 
Fitzgerald,  half  brother  of  Robert  FitzStephen 
and  uncle  of  Giraldus.  Strongbow  meanwhile  was 
still  upon  the  eastern  side  of  the  channel  awaiting 
the  return  of  his  uncle,  Hervey  de  Montmorency, 
whom  he  had  sent  over  to  report  upon  the  condition 
of  affairs.  Even  after  Hervey's  return  bringing  with 
him  a  favourable  report,  he  had  still  the  king's  per- 
mission to  gain.  Early  in  1170  he  again  sought 
Henry  and  this  time  received  an  ambiguous  reply, 
which,  however,  he  chose  to  interpret  in  his  own 
favour.  •  He  sent  back  Hervey  to  Ireland,  accom- 
panied by  Raymond  Fitzgerald,  surnamed  Le  Gros, 
and  a  score  of  knights  with  some  seventy  archers. 
These,  landing  in  Kilkenny,  entrenched  themselves, 
and  being  shortly  afterwards  attacked  by  the  Danes 
of  Waterford,  defeated  them  with  great  slaughter, 
seizing  a  number  of  prisoners.  Over  these  prisoners 
a  dispute  arose ;  Raymond  was  for  sparing  their 
lives,    Hervey   de    Montmorency   for   slaying.      The 


86  THE   ANGLO-NORMAN  INVASION. 

eloquence  of  the  latter  prevailed.  "The  citizens," 
says  Giraldus,  "as  men  condemned,  had  their  limbs 
broken  and  were  cast  headlong  into  the  sea  and  so 
drowned." 

Shortly  after  this  satisfactory  beginning,  Strongbow 
himself  appeared  with  reinforcements.  He  attacked 
Waterford,  which  was  taken  after  a  short  but  furious 
resistance,  and  the  united  forces  of  Dermot  and  the 
Earl  marched  into  the  town,  where  the  marriage  of 
the  latter  with  Eva,  Dermot's  daughter,  was  cele- 
brated, as  Maclise  has  represented  it  in  his  picture, 
amid  lowering  smoke  and  heaps  of  the  dead  and 
dying. 

Dermot  was  now  on  the  top  of  the  wave.  With 
his  English  allies  and  his  own  followers  he  had  a  con- 
siderable force  around  him.  Guiding  the  latter 
through  the  Wicklow  mountains,  which  they  would 
probably  have  hardly  got  through  unaided,  he  de- 
scended with  them  upon  Dublin,  and  despite  the 
efforts  of  St.  Lawrence  O'Toole,  its  archbishop,  to 
effect  a  pacific  arrangement,  the  town  was  taken  by 
assault.  The  principal  Danes,  with  Hasculph,  their 
Danish  governor,  escaped  to  their  ships  and  sailed 
hastily  away  for  the  Orkneys. 

Meath  was  the  next  point  to  be  attacked.  O'Rorke, 
the  old  foe  of  Dermot,  who  held  it  for  King  Roderick, 
was  defeated  ;  whereupon,  in  defiance  of  his  previous 
promises,  Dermot  threw  off  all  disguise  and  pro- 
claimed himself  king  of  Ireland,  upon  which  Rode- 
rick, as  the  only  retaliation  left  in  his  power,  slew 
Dermot's  son  who  had  been  deposited  in  his  hands  as 
hostage. 


SIEGE   OF  DUBLIN  BY   THE   IRISH.  87 

It  was  now  Strongbow's  aim  to  hasten  back  and 
place  his  new  lordship  at  the  feet  of  his  sovereign, 
already  angry  and  jealous  at  such  unlooked  for  and 
uncountenanced  successes.  He  was  not  able  however 
to  do  so  at  once.  Hasculph  the  Dane  returned 
suddenly  with  sixty  ships,  and  a  large  force  under  a 
noted  Berserker  of  the  day,  known  as  John  the  Mr.d, 
"  warriors,"  says  Giraldus,  "  armed  in  Danish  fashion, 
having  long  breast-plates  and  shirts  of  mail,  their 
shields  round  and  bound  about  with  iron.  They  were 
iron-hearted,"  he  says,  "  as  well  as  iron-armed  men." 

In  spite  of  their  arms  and  their  hearts,  he  is  able 
triumphantly  to  proclaim  their  defeat.  Milode  Cogan, 
the  Norman  governor  of  Dublin,  fell  upon  his  as- 
sailants suddenly.  John  the  Mad  was  slain,  as  were 
also  nearly  all  the  Berserkers.  Hasculph  was  brought 
back  in  triumph,  and  promptly  beheaded  by  the  con- 
querors. 

He  was  hardly  dead  before  a  new  assailant,  Godred, 
king  of  Man,  appeared  with  thirty  ships  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Liffey.  Roderick,  in  the  meanwhile,  had  col- 
lected men  from  every  part  of  Ireland,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  north  which  stood  aloof  from  him,  and 
now  laid  siege  to  Dublin  by  land,  helped  by  St.  Law- 
rence its  patriotic  archbishop.  Strongbow  was  thus 
shuL  in  with  foes  behind  and  before,  and  the  like  dis- 
aster had  befallen  Robert  FitzStephen,  who  was  at 
this  time  closely  besieged  in  his  own  new  castle  at 
Wexford.  Dermot  their  chief  native  ally  had  recently 
died.  There  seemed  for  a  while  a  reasonable  chance 
that  the  invaders  would  be  driven  back  and  pushed 
bodiU'  into  the  sea. 


88  THE   ANGLO-NORMAN  INVASION. 

Discipline  and  science  however  again  prevailed. 
The  besieged,  excited  both  by  their  own  danger  and 
that  of  their  friends  in  the  south,  made  a  desperate 
sally.  The  Irish  army  kept  no  watch,  and  was  abso- 
lutely undrilled.  A  panic  set  in.  The  besiegers  fled, 
leaving  behind  them  their  stores  of  provisions,  and 
the  conquerors  thereupon  marched  away  in  triumph 
to  the  relief  of  FitzStephen.  Here  they  were  less 
successful.  By  force,  or  according  to  Giraldus,  by  a 
pretended  tale  of  the  deistruction  of  all  the  other  in- 
vaders, the  Wexford  men  seized  possession  of  him  and 
the  other  English,  and  had  them  flung  into  a  dungeon. 
Finding  that  Strongbow  and  the  rest  were  not  de- 
stroyed, but  that  on  the  contrary  they  were  marching 
down  on  them,  the  Wexford  men  set  fire  to  their  own 
town  and  departed  to  an  island  in  the  harbour,  carry- 
ing their  prisoner  with  them  and  threatening  if 
pursued  to  cut  off  his  head. 

Foiled  in  this  attempt,  Strongbow  hastened  to 
Waterford,  took  boat  there,  and  flew  to  meet  the 
king,  whom  he  encountered  near  Gloucester  with  a 
large  army.  Henry's  greeting  was  a  wrathful  one. 
His  anger  and  jealousy  had  been  thoroughly  aroused. 
Not  unwarrantably.  But  for  his  promptness  his 
headstrong  subjects — several  of  them  it  must  be  re- 
membered of  his  own  dominant  blood — would  have 
been  perfectly  capable  of  attempting  to  carve  out  a 
kingdom  for  themselves  at  his  very  gates.  Happily 
Strongbow  had  found  the  task  too  large  for  his  unaided 
energies,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  had  barely  escaped 
annihilation.  He  was  ready,  therefore,  to  accept  any 
terms  which  his  sovereign  chose  to  impose.     His  sub- 


LANDING    UF   HENRY  II.    IN  IRELAND. 


89 


mission  appears  to  have  disarmed  the  king.  He  al- 
lowed himself  to  be  pacified,  and  after  a  while  they 
returned  to  Ireland  together.  Henry  H.  landed  at 
Waterford  in  the  month  of  October,  1171. 


SOUTH  WINDOW  OF  ST.    CAIMIN'S  CHURCH,    INISMAIN. 


XL 


HENRY   II.    IN   IRELAND. 


This  was  practically  the  end  of  the  struggle.  The 
king  had  four  thousand  men-at-arms  at  his  back,  of 
whom  no  less  than  four  hundred  were  knights.  In 
addition  his  ships  contained  vast  stores  of  provisions, 
a  variety  of  war  devices  never  before  seen  in  Ireland, 
artizans  for  building  bridges  and  making  roads — a 
whole  war  train,  in  short.  Such  a  display  of  force  was 
felt  to  be  irresistible.  The  chieftains  one  after  the  other 
came  in  and  made  their  submission.  Dermot  Mc- 
Carthy, lord  of  Desmond  and  Cork,  was  the  first  to 
do  homage,  followed  by  Donald  O'Brien,  Prince  of 
Thomond  ;  while  another  Donald,  chieftain  of  Ossory, 
rapidly  followed  suit.  The  men  of  Wexford  ap- 
peared, leading  their  prisoner  with  them  by  a  chain, 
■and  presenting  him  as  an  offering  to  his  master,  who, 
first  rating  him  soundly  for  his  unauthorized  proceed- 
ings, ordered  him  to  be  chained  to  another  prisoner 
and  shut  up  in  Reginald's  tower.  Later,  soothed  by 
his  own  triumph,  or  touched,  as  Giraldus  tells  us,  with 
compassion  for  a  brave  man,  he,  at  the  intercession  of 
some  of  his  courtiers,  forgave  and  restored  him  to  his 
possessions,  reserving,  however,  the. town  of  Wexford 
for  himself. 


SUBMISSION  OF   THE   IRISH.  91 

From  Wexford  Henry  marched  to  Dublin,  having 
first  visited  Tipperary  and  Waterford.  The  Danes  at 
once  submitted  and  swore  allegiance ;  so  also  did 
O'Carrol  of  Argial,  O'Rorke  of  Brefny,  and  all  the 
minor  chieftains  of  Leinster  ;  Roderick  O'Connor  still 
stood  at  bay  behind  the  Shannon,  and  the  north  also 
remained  aloof  and  hostile,  but  all  the  other  chieftains, 
great  and  small,  professed  themselves  willing  to  be- 
come tributaries  of  the  king  of  England. 

The  idea  of  an  Ard-Reagh,  or  Over-lord,  was  no  new 
one,  as  we  have  seen,  to  any  of  them.  Theoretically 
they  had  always  acknowledged  one,  although,  practi- 
cally, he  had  rarely  exercised  any  authority  save  over 
his  own  immediate  subjects.  Their  feeling  about 
Henry  was  doubtless  the  same.  They  were  as  willing 
to  swear  fealty  to  him  as  to  Roderick  O'Connor,  more 
so  in  fact,  seeing  that  he  was  stronger  than  Roderick, 
but  that  was  all.  To  Henry  and  to  his  successors 
this  recognition  carried  with  it  all  the  complicated 
dependence  of  feudalism,  which  in  England  meant 
that  his  land  and  everything  else  which  a  man  pos- 
sessed was  his  only  so  long  as  he  did  service  for  it 
to  the  king.  To  these  new  Irish  subjects,  who  had 
never  heard  of  feudalism,  it  entailed  nothing  of  the 
sort.  They  regarded  it  as  a  mere  vague  promise  of 
adhesion,  binding  them  at  most  to  a  general  muster 
or  "  hosting  "  under  his  arms  in  case  of  war  or  some 
common  peril.  This  was  an  initial  misconception, 
which  continued,  as  will  be  seen,  to  be  a  deeper  and 
deeper  source  of  confusion  as  the  years  went  on. 

In  the  meanwhile  Henry  was  established  in  Dublin, 
where  he  kept  Christmas  in  high  state,  occupying  a 


92  HENRY  II.   IN  IRELAND. 

palace  built  in  the  native  fashion  of  painted  wicker- 
work,  set  up  just  outside  the  walls.     Here  he  enter- 
tained the  chiefs,  who  were  naturally  astonished  at  the 
splendour    of    his   entertainments.      "  They   learnt," 
Giraldus  observes  with  satisfaction,  "  to  eat  cranes  " — 
does  this  mean  herons  ? — "  a  species  of  food  which  they 
had  previously  loathed  ;  "  and,  in  general,  were  suitably 
impressed  with  the  greatness  and  glory  of  the  con- 
queror. The  bishops  were  most  of  them  already  warmly 
in  his  favour,  and  at  a  synod  shortly  afterwards  held 
at  Cashel,  at  which  all   the  Irish  clergy  were  repre- 
sented, the  Ciiurch  of  Ireland  was  solemnly  declared  to 
be  finally  united  to  that  of  England,  and  it  was  laid 
down  that,  "as  by  Divine  Providence  Ireland  has  re- 
ceived her  lord  and  king  from  England,  so  she  should 
also  submit  to  a  reformation  from  the  same  source." 
The  weather  that  winter  was  so  rough  that  hardly 
a  ship  could  cross  the  channel,  and  Henry  in  his  new 
kingdom  found  himself  practically  cut  off  from  his 
old  one.     About  the  middle  of  Lent,  the  wind  veering 
at  last  to  the  east,  ships  arrived  from    England  and 
Aquitaine,  bearers  of  very  ill  news  to  the  king.     Two 
legates  were  on  their  way,  sent  by  the  Pope,  to  inquire 
into  the  murder  of  Becket,  and  armed  in  case  of  an 
unsatisfactory  reply  with  all  the  terrors  of  an  interdict. 
Henry  hastily  made  over  the  government  of  Ireland 
to  Hugo  de  Lacy,  whom  he  placed  in  Dublin  as  his 
representative,  and  sailed  from  Wexford  upon  Easter 
Monday.    He  never  again  revisited  his  new  dominions, 
where  many  of  the  lessons  inculcated   by  him — in- 
cluding possibly  the  delights  of  eating  cranes — were 
destined  before  long  to  be  forgotten. 


XII. 

EFFECTS   OF   THE   ANGLO-NORMAN   INVASION. 

Henry  had  been  only  six  months  in  Ireland,  but 
he  had  accomplished  much — more  certainly  than  any 
other  English  ruler  ever  accomplished  afterwards 
within  the  same  time.  He  had  divided  the  ceded 
districts  into  counties  ;  had  appointed  sheriffs  for 
them  ;  had  set  up  three  Law  Courts — Bench,  Pleas, 
and  Exchequer  ;  had  arranged  for  the  going  on  circuit 
by  judges  ;  and  had  established  his  own  character  for 
orthodoxy,  and  acquitted  himself  of  his  obligations 
to  the  papacy  by  freeing  all  church  property  from  the 
exactions  of  the  chiefs,  and  rigidly  enforcing  the 
payment  of  tithes. 

In  a  still  more  important  point — that  about  which 
he  was  evidently  himself  most  tenacious — his  success 
was  even  more  complete.  He  once  for  all  put  a  stop 
to  all  danger  of  an  independent  lordship  by  forcing 
those  who  had  already  received  grants  of  land  from 
the  native  chiefs  to  surrender  them  into  his  hands,  and 
to  receive  them  back  direct  from  himself,  according  to 
the  ordinary  terms  of  feudal  tenure. 

That  he  had  larger  and  more  statesmanlike  views 
for  the  new  dependency  than  he  was  ever  able  to 


94      EFFECTS   OF   THE   ANGLO-NORMAN  INVASION. 

carry  out  there  can  be  no  question.  As  early  as  1 177 
he  appointed  his  youngest  son  John  king  of  Ireland, 
and  seems  to  have  fully  formed  the  intention  of 
sending  him  over  as  a  permanent  governor  or  viceroy, 
a  purpose  which  the  misconduct  of  that  youthful 
Rehoboam,  as  Giraldus  calls  him,  v/as  chiefly  instru- 
mental in  foiling. 

It  is  curious  to  hear  this  question  of  a  royal  viceroy 
and  a  permanent  royal  residence  in  Ireland  coming  to 
the  front  so  very  early  in  the  history  of  English  rule 
there.  That  the  experiment,  if  fairly  tried,  and  tried 
with  a  man  of  the  calibre  of  Henry  himself,  might 
have  made  the  whole  difference  in  the  future  of 
Ireland,  we  cannot,  I  think,  reasonably  doubt.  Any 
government,  indeed,  so  that  it  was  central,  so  that  it 
gathered  itself  into  a  single  hand  and  took  its  im- 
press from  a  single  mind,  would  have  been  better  a 
thousand  times  than  the  miserable  condition  of  half- 
conquest,  half-rule,  whole  anarchy  and  confusion  which 
set  in  and  continued  with  hardly  a  break. 

This  is  one  reason  more  why  it  is  so  much  to  be 
regretted  that  Ireland,  save  for  a  few  years,  had  never 
any  real  king  or  central  government  of  her  own.  Had 
this  been  the  case,  even  if  she  had  been  eventually 
conquered  by  England — as  would  likely  enough  have 
been  the  case — the  result  of  that  conquest  would 
have  been  different.  There  would  have  been  some 
one  recognized  point  of  government  and  organization, 
and  the  struggle  would  have  been  more  violent  and 
probably  more  successful  at  first,  but  less  chronic  and 
less  eternally  renewed  in  the  long  run.  As  it  was,  all 
the  conditions  were  at  their  very  worst.  No  native  ruler 


LACK  OF   UNITY  AMONG    THE   IRISH.  95 

of  the  calibre  of  a  Brian  Boru  could  ever  again 
hope  to  unite  all  Ireland  under  him,  since  long  before 
he  arrived  at  that  point  his  enemies  would  have 
called  in  the  aid  of  the  new  colonists,  who  would  have 
fallen  upon  and  annihilated  him,  though  after  doing 
so  they  would  have  been  as  little  able  to  govern  the 
country  for  themselves  as  before. 

This  also  explains  what  is  often  set  down  as  the 
inexplicable  want  of  patriotism  shown  by  the  native 
Irish  in  not  combining  more  resolutely  together 
against  their  assailants.  It  is  true  that  they  did  not 
do  so,  but  the  fact  is  not  referred  to  the  right  cause. 
An  Englishman  of  the  time  of  the  Heptarchy  had,  if 
at  all,  little  more  patriotism,  and  hardly  more  sense 
of  common  country.  He  was  a  Wessex  man,  or  a 
Northumbrian,  or  a  man  of  the  North  or  the  East 
Angles,  rather  than  an  Englishman.  So  too  in 
Ireland.  As  a  people  the  Irish  of  that  day  can  hardly 
be  said  to  have  had  any  corporate  existence.  They 
were  O'Briens,  or  O'Neils,  or  O'Connors,  or  O'Fla- 
herties,  and  that  no  doubt  in  their  own  eyes  appeared 
to  be  quite  nationality  enough. 

Unfortunately  both  for  the  country  and  for  his  own 
successors,  Henry  had  no  time  to  carry  out  his  plans, 
and  all  that  he  had  begun  to  organize  fell  away  into 
disorder  again  after  his  departure.  "  That  inconstant 
sea-nymph,"  says  Sir  John  Davis,  "  whom  the  Pope 
had  wedded  to  him  with  a  ring,"  remained  obedient 
only  as  long  as  her  new  lord  was  present,  and  once 
his  back  was  turned  she  reverted  to  her  own  ways 
again.  The  crowd  of  Norman  and  Welsh  adven- 
turers who    now    filled    the   country  were    each    and 


g6      EFFECTS   OF   THE  ANGLO-NORMAN  INVASION. 

all  intent  upon  ascertaining  how  much  of  that 
country  they  could  seize  upon  and  appropriate  for 
themselves.  There  were  many  gallant  men  amongst 
them,  but  there  was  not  one  apparently  who  had 
the  faintest  trace  of  what  is  meant  by  public  spirit. 
Occupied  only  by  their  own  interests,  and  struggling 
solely  for  their  own  share  of  the  spoil,  they  could 
never  really  hold  the  country,  and  even  those  parts 
which  they  did  get  into  their  hands  lapsed  back  after 
a  while  into  the  old  condition  again. 

The  result  was  that  the  fighting  never  ended. 
The  new  colonists  built  castles  and  lived  shut  up 
in  them,  ruling  their  own  immediate  retainers  with 
an  odd  mixture  of  Brehon  and  Norman  law.  When 
they  issued  forth  they  appeared  clad  from  head  to 
foot  in  steel,  ravaging  the  country  more  like  foreign 
mercenaries  than  peaceful  settlers.  The  natives, 
driven  to  bay  and  dispossessed  of  their  lands,  fought 
too,  not  in  armour,  but,  like  the  Berserkers  of 
old,  in  their  shirts,  with  the  addition  at  most  of  a 
rude  leather  helmet,  more  often  only  with  their  hair 
matted  into  a  sort  of  cap  on  their  foreheads  in  the 
fashion  known  as  the  "  gibbe,"  that  "  rascally  gibbe  " 
to  which  Spenser  and  other  Elizabethan  writers  ob- 
ject so  strongly.  By  way  of  defence  they  now  and 
then  threw  up  a  rude  stockade  of  earth  or  stone, 
modifications  of  the  primitive  rath,  more  often  they 
made  no  defence,  or  merely  twisted  a  jungle  of 
boughs  along  the  pathways  to  break  the  advance  of 
their  more  heavily  armed  foes.  The  ideas  of  the 
two  races  were  as  dissimilar  as  their  weapons.  The 
instinct  of  the   one   was  to    conquer  a   country  and 


TACTICS   OF   THE   NORMANS  AND    THE   IRISH,     gy 

subdue  it  to  their  own  uses  ;  the  instinct  of  the  other 
was  to  trust  to  the  country  itself,  and  depend  upon  its 
natural  features,  its  forests,  morasses,  and  so  forth  for 
security.  The  one  was  irresistible  in  attack,  the 
other,  as  his  conqueror  soon  learnt  to  his  cost,  practi- 
cally invincible  in  defence,  returning  doggedly  again 
and  again,  and  a  hundred  times  over  to  the  ground 
from  which  he  seemed  at  first  to  have  been  so  easil)' 
and  so  effectually  driven  off. 

All  these  peculiarities,  which  for  ages  continued  to 
mark  the  struggle  between  the  two  races  now  brought 
face  to  face  in  a  death  struggle,  are  just  as  marked 
and  just  as  strikingly  conspicuous  in  the  first  twenty 
years  which  followed  the  invasion  as  they  are  during 
the  succeeding  half-dozen  centuries. 


tlGUKES  ON    KILCARN    FONT,   MEATH. 


XIII. 


JOHN    IN    IRELAND. 


Henry  had  gone,  and  the  best  hopes  of  the  new 
dependency  departed  with  him  never  to  return  again. 
Fourteen  years  later  he  despatched  his  son  John, 
then  a  youth  of  nineteen,  with  a  train  of  courtiers, 
and  amongst  them  our  friend  Giraldus,  who  appeared 
to  have  been  sent  over  in  some  sort  of  tutorial  or 
secretarial  capacity. 

The  expedition  was  a  disastrous  failure.  The 
chiefs  flocked  to  Waterford  to  do  honour  to  their 
king's  son.  The  courtiers,  encouraged  by  their  inso- 
lent young  master,  scoffed  at  the  dress,  and  mockingly 
plucked  the  long  beards  of  the  tributaries.  Furious  and 
smarting  under  the  insult  they  withdrew,  hostile  every 
man  of  them  now  to  the  death.  The  news  spread  ; 
the  more  distant  and  important  of  the  chieftains 
declined  to  appear.  John  and  his  courtiers  gave 
themselves  up  to  rioting  and  misconduct  of  various 
kinds.  All  hopes  of  conciliation  were  at  an  end. 
A  success'ful  confederation  was  formed  amongst  the 
Irish,  and  the  English  were  for  a  while  driven  bodily 
out  of  Munster.  John  returned  to  England  at  the 
end  of  eight  months,  recalled  in  hot  haste  and  high 
displeasure  by  his  father. 


SUCCESS   OF  yOHN.  99 

Twenty-five  years  later  he  came  back  again,  this 
time  as  king,  with  a  motley  army  of  mercenaries 
gathered  to  crush  the  two  brothers  De  Lacy,  who 
for  the  moment  dominated  all  Ireland  —  the  one, 
Hugo,  being  Earl  of  Ulster,  and  Viceroy  ;  the  other, 
Walter,  Lord  of  the  Palatinate  of  Meath. 

Among  his  many  vices  John  had  not  at  least  that 
of  indolence  to  be  laid  to  his  charge !  He  marched 
direct  from  Watcrford  to  Trim,  the  headquarters  of 
the  De  Lacys,  seized  the  castle,  moved  on  next  day 
to  Kells,  thence  proceeded  by  rapid  stages  to  Dun- 
dalk,  Carlingford,  Downpatrick,  and  Carrickfergus. 
Hugo  de  Lacy  fled  in  dismay  to  Scotland.  The  chief- 
tains of  Connaught  and  Thomond  joined  their  forces 
with  those  of  the  king;  even  the  hitherto  indomitable 
O'Neil  made  a  proffer  of  submission.  Leaving  a  gar- 
rison at  Carrickfergus,  John  marched  back  by  Down- 
patrick and  Drogheda,  re-entered  Meath,  visited 
Duleek,  slept  a  night  at  Kells,  and  so  back  to 
Dublin,  where  he  was  met  by  nearly  every  Anglo- 
Norman  baron,  each  and  all  eager  to  exhibit  their 
own  loyalty.  His  next  care  was  to  divide  their  ter- 
ritory into  counties  ;  to  bind  them  over  to  supply 
soldiers  when  called  upon  to  do  so  by  the  viceroy,  and 
to  arrange  for  the  muster  of  troops  in  Dublin.  Then 
away  he  went  again  to  England.  He  had  been  in  the 
country  exactly  sixty-six  days. 

Unpleasant  man  and  detestable  king  as  he  was, 
John  had  no  slight  share  of  the  governing  powers 
of  his  race,  and  even  his  short  stay  in  Ireland 
did  some  good,  enough  to  show  what  might  have 
been  done  had  a  better  man,  and  one  in  a  little  less 


lOO  JOHN   IN   IRELAND. 

desperate  hurry,  remained  to  hold  the  reins.  He 
had  proved  that,  however  they  might  ape  the  part, 
the  barons  were  not  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  ab- 
solute lords  of  Ireland  ;  that  they  had  a  master 
beyond  the  sea  ;  one  who,  if  aroused,  could  make  the 
boldest  of  them  shake  in  his  coat  of  mail.  The  lesson 
was  not  as  well  learnt  as  it  ought  to  have  been,  but  it 
was  better  at  least  than  if  it  had  not  been  learnt  at  all. 
At  that  age  and  in  its  then  condition  a  strong 
ruler — native  if  possible,  if  not,  foreign — was  by  far 
the  best  hope  for  Ireland.  Such  a  ruler,  if  only  for 
his  own  sake,  would  have  had  the  genuine  interests 
of  the  country  at  heart.  He  might  have  tyrannized 
himself,  but  the  little  tyrants  would  have  been  kept 
at  bay.  Few  countries — and  certainly  Ireland  was 
not  one  of  the  exceptions — were  at  that  time  ripe 
for  what  we  now  mean  by  free  institutions.  Free- 
dom meant  the  freedom  of  a  strong  government,  one 
that  was  not  at  the  beck  of  accident,  and  was  not 
perpetually  changing  from  one  hand  to  another. 
The  English  people  found  this  out  for  themselves 
centuries  later  during  the  terrible  anarchy  which 
resulted  from  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  and  of  their 
own  accord  put  themselves  under  the  brutal,  but  on 
the  whole  patriotic,  yoke  of  the  Tudors.  In  Ireland 
the  petty  masters  unfortunately  were  always  near  ; 
the  great  one  was  beyond  the  sea  and  not  so  easily 
to  be  got  at !  There  was  no  unity  ;  no  pretence  of 
even-handed  justice,  no  one  to  step  between  the  op- 
pressed and  the  oppressor.  And  the  result  of  all 
this  is  still  to  be  seen  written  as  in  letters  of  brass 
upon  the  face  of  the  country  and  woven  into  the 
very  texture  of  the  character  of  its  people. 


XIV. 


THE   LORDS   PALATINE. 


The  jealousy  shown  by  Henry  and  his  sons  to- 
wards the  earliest  invaders  of  Ireland  is  doubtless 
the  reason  why  Giraldus — for  a  courtier  and  an  eccle- 
siastic upon  his  promotion — is  so  remarkably  explicit 
upon  their  royal  failings.  The  Geraldines  especially 
seem  to  have  been  the  objects  of  this  not  very 
unnatural  jealousy,  and  the  Geraldines  are,  on 
the  other  hand,  to  Giraldus  himself,  objects  of  an 
almost  superstitious  worship.  His  pen  never  wearies 
of  expatiating  upon  their  valour,  fame,  beauty,  and 
innumerable  graces,  laying  stress  especially  —  and 
in  this  he  is  certainly  borne  out  by  the  facts — upon 
the  great  advantage  which  men  trained  in  the  Welsh 
wars,  and  used  all  their  lives  to  skirmishing  in  the 
lightest  order,  had  over  those  who  had  had  no  pre- 
vious experience  of  the  very  peculiar  warfare  neces- 
sary in  Ireland.  "  Who,"  he  cries  with  a  burst  of 
enthusiasm,  "  first  penetrated  into  the  heart  of  the 
enemy's  country  ?  The  Geraldines  !  Who  have  kept 
it  in  submission  ?  The  Geraldines  !  Who  struck  most 
terror  into  the  enemy  ?  The  Geraldines  !  Against 
whom  are  the  shafts  of  malice  chiefly  directed  ?     The 


102  THE  LORDS   PALATINE. 

Geraldines  !  Oh  that  they  had  found  a  prince  who 
could  have  appreciated  their  distinguished  worth ! 
How  tranquil,  how  peaceful  would  then  have  been  the 
state  of  Ireland  under  their  administration  !" 

Even  their  indignant  chronicler  admits  however 
that  the  Geraldines  did  not  do  so  very  badly  for 
themselves !  Maurice  Fitzgerald,  the  eldest  of  the 
brothers,  became  the  ancestor  both  of  the  Earls  of 
Kildare  and  Desmond  ;  William,  the  younger,  ob- 
tained an  immense  grant  of  land  in  Kerry  from 
the  McCarthys,  indeed  as  time  went  on  the  lordship 
of  the  Desmond  Fitzgeralds  grew  larger  and  larger, 
until  it  covered  nearly  as  much  ground  as  many  a 
small  European  kingdom.  Nor  was  this  all.  The 
White  Knight,  the  Knight  of  Glyn,  and  the  Knight 
of.  Kerry  were  all  three  Fitzgeralds,  all  descended 
from  the  same  root,  and  all  owned  large  tracts  of 
country.  The  position  of  the  Geraldines  of  Kildare 
was  even  more  important,  on  account  of  their  close 
proximity  to  Dublin.  In  later  times  their  great  keep 
at  Maynooth  dominated  the  whole  Pale,  while  their 
followers  swarmed  everywhere,  each  man  with  a  G. 
embroidered  upon  his  breast  in  token  of  his  allegi- 
ance. By  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  their 
power  had  reached  to,  perhaps,  the  highest  point  ever 
attained  in  these  islands  by  any  subject.  Whoever 
might  be  called  the  Viceroy  in  Ireland  it  was  the  Earl 
of  Kildare  who  practically  governed  the  country. 

Originally  there  were  three  Palatinates — Leinster 
granted  to  Strongbow,  Meath  to  De  Lacy,  and  Ulster 
to  De  Courcy.  To  these  two  more  were  afterwards 
added,  namely,  Ormond  and  Desmond.    The  power  of 


THE   FIVE   PALATINATES.  IO3 

the  Lord  Palatine  was  all  but  absolute.  He  had  his  own 
Palatinate  court,  with  its  judges,  sheriffs,  and  coroners. 
He  could  build  fortified  towns,  and  endow  them  with 
charters.  He  could  create  as  many  knights  as  he 
thought  fit,  a  privilege  of  which  they  seem  fully  to 
have  availed  themselves,  since  we  learn  that  Richard, 
Earl  of  Ulster,  created  no  less  than  thirty-three  upon 
a  single  occasion.  For  all  practical  purposes  the 
Palatinates  were  thus  simply  petty  kingdoms  or  prin- 
cipalities, independent  in  everything  but  the  name. 

Strongbow,  the  greatest  of  all  the  territorial  barons, 
left  no  son  to  inherit  his  estates,  only  a  daughter, 
who  married  William  Marshall,  Earl  of  Pembroke. 
Through  her  his  estates  passed  to  five  heiresses,  who 
married  five  great  nobles,  namely,  Warrenne,  Mount- 
chesny,  De  Vesci,  De  Braosa,  and  Gloucester.  Strong- 
bow's  Palatinate  of  Leinster  was  thus  split  up  into 
five  smaller  Palatinates.  As  none  of  the  new  owners 
moreover  chose  to  live  in  Ireland,  and  their  revenues 
were  merely  drawn  away  to  England,  the  estates  were 
after  awhile  very  properly  declared  forfeited,  and  went 
to  the  Crown.  Thus  the  one  who  of  all  the  adven- 
turers had  cherished  the  largest  and  most  ambitious 
hopes  in  the  end  left  no  enduring  mark  at  all  in  Ireland. 

Connaught  —  despite  a  treaty  drawn  up  between 
Henry  I.  and  Cathal  O'Connor,  its  native  king — was 
granted  by  John  to  William  FitzAldelm  de  Burgh 
and  his  son  Richard,  on  much  the  same  terms  as  Ulster 
had  been  already  granted  to  De  Courcy,  on  the  under- 
standing, that  is  to  say,  that  if  he  could  he  might 
win  it  by  the  sword.  De  Courcy  failed,  but  the  De 
Burghs    were  wilier  and  more  successful.     Carefully 


104  ^^^   LORDS   PALATINE. 

fostering  a  strife  which  shortly  after  broke  out  be- 
tween the  two  rival  princes  of  the  house  of  O'Connor, 
and  watching  from  the  fortress  they  had  built  for 
themselves  at  Athlone,  upon  the  Shannon,  they  seized 
an  opportunity  when  both  combatants  were  exhausted 
to  pounce  upon  the  country,  and  wrest  the  greater 
part  of  it  away  from  their  grasp.  They  also  drove 
away  the  clan  of  O'Flaherty— owners  from  time  im- 
memorial of  the  region  known  as  Moy  Seola,  to  the 
east  of  the  bay  of  Galway — and  forced  them  back 
across  Lough  Corrib,  where  they  took  refuge  amongst 
the  mountains  of  lar  Connaught,  descending  continu- 
ally in  later  times  in  fierce  hordes,  and  wreaking  their 
vengeance  upon  the  town  of  Galway,  which  had  been 
founded  by  the  De  Burghs  at  the  mouth  of  the  river 
which  carries  the  waters  of  Lough  Corrib  to  the  sea. 
To  this  day  the  whole  of  this  region  of  Moy  Seola 
and  the  eastern  shores  of  Lough  Corrib  may  be  seen 
to  be  thickly  peppered  over  with  ruined  De  Burgh 
castles,  monuments  of  some  four  or  five  centuries  of 
uninterrupted  fighting. 

At  one  time  the  De  Burghs  were  by  far  the  largest 
landowners  in  Ireland.  Not  only  did  they  possess  an 
immense  tract  of  Connaught,  but  by  the  marriage 
of  Richard  de  Burgh's  son  to  Maud,  daughter  of  Hugh 
de  Lacy,  Earl  of  Ulster,  they  became  the  nominal 
owners  of  nearly  all  Ulster  to  boot.  It  never  was 
more,  however,  than  a  nominal  ownership,  the  clutch 
of  the  O'Neills  and  O'Donnels  being  found  practic- 
ally impossible  to  unloose,  so  that  all  the  De  Burghs 
could  be  said  to  hold  were  the  southern  borders  of 
what  are  now  the  counties  of  Down,  Monaghan,  and 


THE  BURKES  AND    THE   ORMONDS.  10^ 

Antrim.  When,  too,  William,  the  third  Earl  of  Ul- 
ster, was  murdered  in  1333,  his  possessions  passed  to 
his  daughter  and  heiress,  a  child  of  two  years  old. 
A  baby  girl's  inheritance  was  not  likely,  as  may  be 
imagined,  to  be  regarded  at  that  date  as  particularly 
sacred.  Ulster  was  at  once  retaken  by  the  O'Neills 
and  O'Connels.  Two  of  the  Burkes,  or  De  Burghs, 
Ulick  and  Edmund,  seized  Connaught  and  divided  it 
between  them,  becoming  in  due  time  the  ancestors, 
the  one  of  the  Mayos,  the  other  of  the  Clanricardes. 

Another  of  the  great  houses  was  that  of  the  Or- 
monds,  descended  from  Theobald  Walter,  a  nephew 
of  Thomas  a  Becket,  who  was  created  hereditary  cup- 
bearer or  butler  to  Henry  II.  Theobald  Walter 
received  grants  of  land  in  Tipperary  and  Kilkenny,  as 
well  as  at  Arklow,  and  in  1391  Kilkenny  Castle 
was  sold  to  his  descendant  the  Earl  of  Ormond  by 
the  heirs  of  Strongbow.  The  Ormonds'  most  marked 
characteristic  is  that  from  the  beginning  to  the  end 
of  their  career  they  remained,  with  hardly  an  excep- 
tion, loyal  adherents  of  the  English  Crown.  Their 
most  important  representative  was  the  "  great  duke  " 
as  he  was  called,  James,  Duke  of  Ormond,  who  bore 
an  important  part  in  the  civil  wars  of  Charles  I.,  and 
is  perhaps  the  most  distinguished  representative  of  all 
these  great  Norman  Irish  houses,  unless  indeed  one 
of  the  greatest  names  in  the  whole  range  of  English 
political  history — that  of  Edmund  Burke — is  to  be 
added  to  the  list,  as  perhaps  in  fairness  it  ought. 

Troublesome  as  it  is  to  keep  these  different  houses 
in  the  memory,  it  is  hopeless  to  attempt  without 
doing  so  to  understand  anything  of  the  history  of 


I06  THE   LORDS   PALATINE. 

Ireland.  In  England  where  the  ruling  power  was  vested 
first  in  the  sovereign  and  later  in  the  Parliament, 
the  landowners,  however  large  their  possessions,  rarely 
attained  to  more  than  a  local  importance,  save  of 
course  when  one  of  them  chanced  to  rise  to  eminence 
as  a  soldier  or  a  statesman.  In  Ireland  the  parliament, 
throughout  nearly  the  whole  of  its  separate  existence, 
was  little  more  than  a  name,  irregularly  summoned, 
and  until  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  repre- 
senting only  one  small  corner  of  the  country.  The 
kings  never  came  ;  the  viceroys  came  and  went  in  a 
continually  changing  succession ;  practically,  therefore, 
the  great  territorial  barons  constituted  the  backbone 
of  the  country — so  far  as  it  could  be  said  to  have  had 
any  backbone  at  all.  They  made  war  with  the  native 
chiefs,  or  else  made  alliances  with  them  and  married 
their  daughters.  They  raided  one  another's  proper- 
ties, slew  one  another's  kerns,  and  carried  one  another 
away  prisoner.  Sometimes  their  independent  action 
went  even  further  than  this.  The  battle  of  Knocktow, 
of  which  we  shall  hear  in  due  time,  arose  because  the 
Earl  of  Kildare's  daughter  had  quarrelled  with  her 
husband,  the  Earl  of  Clanricarde,  and  her  father  chose 
to  espouse  her  quarrel.  Two  large  armies  were 
collected,  nearly  all  the  lords  of  the  Pale  and  their 
followers  being  upon  one  side,  under  the  banner  of 
Kildare,  a  vast  and  undisciplined  horde  of  natives 
under  Clanricarde  upon  the  other,  and  the  slaughter 
is  said  to  have  exceeded  8,000.  Parental  affection  is 
a  very  attractive  quality,  but  when  it  swells  to  such 
dimensions  as  these  it  becomes  formidable  for  the 
peace  of  a  country  ! 


XV. 


EDWARD   BRUCE   IN   IRELAND. 


One  of  the  greatest  difficulties  to  be  faced  in  the 
study  of  Irish  history,  no  matter  upon  what  scale,  is 
to  discover  any  reasonable  method  of  dividing  our 
space.  The  habit  of  distributing  all  historical  affairs 
into  reigns  is  often  misleading  enough  even  in  Eng- 
land ;  in  Ireland  it  becomes  simply  ridiculous.  What 
difference  can  any  one  suppose  it  made  to  the  great 
bulk  of  the  people  of  that  country  whether  a  Henry, 
whom  they  had  never  seen,  had  been  succeeded  by  an 
Edward  they  had  never  seen,  or  an  Edward  by  a 
Henry  ?  No  two  sovereigns  could  have  been  less  alike 
in  character  or  aims  than  Henry  III.  and  Edward  I., 
yet  when  we  fix  our  eyes  upon  Ireland  the  difference 
is  to  all  intents  and  purposes  imperceptible. 

That,  though  he  never  visited  the  country,  Edward  I., 
like  his  great-grandfather,  had  large  schemes  for  the 
benefit  of  Ireland  is  certain.  Practically,  however^ 
his  schemes  never  came  to  anything,  and  the  chief 
effect  of  his  reign  was  that  the  country  was  so  largely 
drawn  upon  for  men  and  money  for  the  support  of 
his  wars  elsewhere  as  greatly  to  weaken  the  already 
feeble  power  of  the  Government,  the  result  being  that 


I08  EDWARD   BRUCE   IN   IRELAND. 

at  tlic  first  touch  of  serious  trouble  it  all  but  fell  to 
pieces. 

Very  serious  trouble  indeed  came  in  the  reign  of 
the  second  Edward.  The  battle  of  Bannockburn — 
the  greatest  disaster  which  ever  befel  the  English 
during  their  Scotch  wars  —  had  almost  as  marked 
an  effect  on  Ireland  as  on  Scotland,  All  the  ele- 
ments of  disaffection  at  once  began  to  boil  and 
bubble.  The  O'Neills  —  ever  ready  for  a  fray, 
and  the  nearest  in  point  of  distance  to  Scotland — 
promptly  made  overtures  to  the  Bruces,  and  Edward 
Bruce,  the  victorious  king's  brother,  was  despatched 
at  the  head  of  a  large  army,  and  landing  in  131 5  near 
Carrickfergus  was  at  once  joined  by  the  O'Neills,  and 
war  proclaimed. 

The  first  to  confront  these  new  allies  was  Richard 
de  Burgh,  the  "  Red  Earl  "  of  Ulster,  who  was  twice 
defeated  by  them  and  driven  back  on  Dublin.  The 
viceroy.  Sir  Edmund  Butler,  was  the  next  encoun- 
tered, and  he  also  was  defeated  at  a  battle  near 
Ardscul,  whereupon  the  whole  country  rose  like  one 
man,  Fedlim  O'Connor,  the  young  king  of  Con- 
naught,  the  hereditary  chieftain  of  Thomond,  and 
a  host  of  smaller  chieftains  of  Connaught,  Munster, 
and  Meath,  flew. to  arms.  Even  the  De  Lacys  and 
several  of  the  other  Norman  colonists  threw  in  their 
lot  with  the  invaders.  Edward  Bruce  gained  another 
victory  at  Kells,  and  having  wasted  the  country 
round  about,  destroying  the  property  of  the  colonists 
and  slaughtering  all  whom  he  could  find,  he  returned 
to  Carrickfergus,  where  he  was  met  by  his  brother, 
King  Robert,  and  together  they  crossed  Ireland,  de- 


nAVAGES   OF   THE   SCOTS.  109 

scending  as  far  south  as  Cashcl,  and  burning,  pillag- 
ing, and  destroying  wherever  they  went.  In  13 16  the 
younger  Bruce  was  crowned  king  at  Dundalk. 

Such  was  the  panic  they  created,  and  so  utterly 
disunited  were  the  colonists,  that  for  a  time  they 
carried  all  before  them.  It  is  plain  that  Edward 
Bruce — who  on  one  side  was  descended  both  from 
Strongbow  and  Dermot  McMurrough — fully  hoped 
to  have  cut  out  a  kingdom  for  himself  with  his  sword, 
as  others  of  his  blood  had  hoped  and  intended  before 
him.  His  own  excesses,  however,  went  far  to  prevent 
that.  So  frightfully  did  he  devastate  the  country, 
and  so  horrible  was  the  famine  which  he  created,  that 
many  even  of  his  own  army  perished  from  it  or  from 
the  pestilence  which  followed.  His  Irish  allies  fell 
away  in  dismay.  English  and  Irish  annalists,  unani- 
mous for  once,  alike  exclaim  in  horror  over  his  deeds. 
Clyn,  the  Franciscan  historian,  tells  us  how  he  burned 
and  plundered  the  churches.  The  annals  of  Lough  Ce 
say  that  "  no  such  period  for  famine  or  destruction 
of  men"  ever  occurred,  and  that  people  "used  then  to 
eat  one  another  throughout  Erin."  "  They,  the  Scots," 
says  the  poet  Spenser,  writing  centuries  later,  "  utterly 
consumed  and  wasted  whatsoever  was  before  left  un- 
spoyled  so  that  of  all  towns,  castles,  forts,  bridges, 
and  habitations  they  left  not  a  stick  standing,  nor  yet 
any  people  remayning,  for  those  few  which  yet  survived 
fledde  from  their  fury  further  into  the  English  Pale 
that  now  is.  Thus  was  all  that  goodly  country  utterly 
laid  waste." 

Such  insane  destruction   brought  its  own  punish- 
•ment.      The  colonists   began    to  recover  from  their 


no  EDWARD   BRUCE   IN   IRELAND. 

dismay.  Ormonds,  Kildares,  and  Desmonds  be- 
stirred themselves  to  collect  troops.  The  O'Connors, 
who  with  all  their  tribe  had  risen  in  arms,  had  been 
utterly  defeated  at  Athenry,  where  the  young  king 
Fedlim  and  no  less  than  10,000  of  his  followers  are 
said  to  have  been  left  dead.  Roger  Mortimer,  the  new 
viceroy,  was  re-organizing  the  government  in  Dublin. 
The  clergy,  stimulated  by  a  Papal  mandate,  had  all 
now  turned  against  the  invader.  Robert  Bruce  had 
some  time  previously  been  recalled  to  Scotland,  and 
Sir  John  de  Bermingham,  the  victor  of  Athenry, 
pushing  northward  at  the  head  of  15,000  chosen 
troops,  met  the  younger  Bruce  at  Dundalk.  The 
combat  was  hot,  short,  and  decisive.  The  Scots  were 
defeated,  Edward  Bruce  himself  killed,  and  his  head 
struck  off  and  sent  to  London.  The  rest  hastened 
back  to  Scotland  with  as  little  delay  as  possible.  The 
Scotch  invasion  was  over. 

It  was  over,  but  its  effects  remained.  From  one 
end  of  Ireland  to  the  other  there  was  disaffection, 
anger,  revolt.  England  had  proved  too  weak  or 
too  negligent  to  interfere  at  the  right  time  and  in  the 
right  way,  and  although  successful  in  the  end  she 
could  not  turn  back  the  tide.  There  was  a  general 
feeling  of  disbelief  in  the  reality  of  her  government. 
A  semi-national  feeling  had  sprung  up  which  tem- 
porarily united  colonists  and  natives  in  a  bond  of 
self-defence.  Norman  nobles  and  native  Irish  chief- 
tains threw  in  their  lot  together.  The  English  yeo- 
man class,  which  had  begun  to  get  established  in 
Leinster  and  Munster,  had  been  all  but  utterly 
destroyed  by  Edward   Bruce,  and  the  remnant  now* 


THE   ENGLISH   BECOME    IRISH.  Ill 

left  the  country  in  despair.  The  great  English  lords, 
with  the  exception  of  Ormond  and  Kildare,  from 
this  out  took  Irish  names  and  adopted  Irish  dress 
and  fashions.  The  two  De  Burghs,  as  already  stated, 
seized  upon  the  Connaught  possessions  of  their 
cousin,  and  divided  them,  taking  the  one  Galway  and 
the  other  Mayo,  and  calling  themselves  McWilliam 
Eighter  and  McWilliam  Oughter,  or  the  Nether 
and  the  Further  Burkes.  So  too  with  nearly  all  the 
rest.  Bermingham  of  Athenry,  in  spite  of  his  late 
famous  victory  over  the  Irish,  did  the  same,  calling 
himself  McYorris  ;  FitzMaurice  of  Lixnaw  became 
McMaurice  ;  FitzUrse  of  Louth,  McMahon  ;  and  so 
on  through  a  whole  list. 

Nor  is  it  difficult  to  understand  the  motives  which 
led  to  these  changes.  The  position  of  an  Irish 
chieftain — with  his  practically  limitless  powers  of  life 
and  death,  his  wild  retinue  of  retainers  whose  only 
law  was  the  will  of  their  chief — offered  an  irre- 
sistible temptation  to  men  of  their  type,  and  had 
many  more  charms  than  the  narrow  and  uninteresting 
ro/e  of  liegeman  to  a  king  whom  they  never  saw, 
and  the  obeying  of  whose  behests  brought  them  harm 
rather  than  good.  England  had  shown  only  too 
plainly  that  she  had  no  power  to  protect  her  Irish 
colonists,  of  what  use  therefore,  it  was  asked,  for  them 
to  call  themselves  any  longer  English  ?  The  great 
majority  from  that  moment  ceased  to  do  so.  Save 
within  the  "  five  obedient  shires"  which  came  to  be 
known  as  the  English  Pale,  "  the  king's  writ  no  longer 
ran."  The  native  Irish  swarmed  back  from  the  moun- 
tains and  forests,  and  repossessed  themselves  of  the 


112 


THE   LORDS   PALATINE. 


lands  from  which  they  had  been  driven.  No  serious 
attempts  were  made  to  re-establish  the  authority  of 
the  law  over  three-fourths  of  the  island.  Within  a 
century  and  a  half  of  the  so-called  conquest,  save 
within  one  small  and  continually  narrowing  area, 
Ireland  had  ceased  even  nominally  to  belong  to 
England. 


TRIM   CASTLE  ON   THE   BOYNE. 


XVI. 

THE   STATUTE   OF   KILKENNY. 

It  was  not  to  be  expected,  however,  that  the  larger 
country  would  for  very  shame  let  her  possessions  thus 
slip  from  her  grasp  without  an  effort  to  retain  them, 
certainly  not  when  a  ruler  of  the  calibre  of  an  Edward 
III.  came  to  the  helm.  Had  his  energies  been  able 
to  concentrate  themselves  upon  Ireland  the  stream 
which  was  setting  dead  against  loyalty  might  even 
then  have  been  turned  back.  The  royal  interest  would 
have  risen  to  the  top  of  faction,  as  it  did  in  England, 
and  would  have  curbed  the  growing  and  dangerous 
power  of  the  barons.  That  magic  which  surrounds 
the  word  king  might — who  can  say  that  it  would  not  ? 
— have  awakened  a  sentiment  at  once  of  patriotism 
and  loyalty. 

Chimerical  as  it  may  sound  even  to  suppose  such  a 
thing,  there  seems  no  valid  reason  why  it  might  not 
have  been.  No  people  admittedly  are  more  intensely 
loyal  by  nature  than  the  native  Irish.  By  their  fail- 
ings no  less  than  their  virtues  they  are  extraordinarily 
susceptible  to  a  personal  influence,  and  that  devotion 
which  they  so  often  showed  towards  their  own  chiefs 
might  with  very  little  trouble  have  been  awakened  in 


114  ^^^   STATUTE   OF  KILKENNY. 

favour  of  a  king.  It  is  one  of  the  most  deplorable  of 
the  many  deplorable  facts  which  stud  the  history 
of  Ireland  that  no  opening  for  the  growth  of  such 
sentiment  was  ever  once  presented— certainly  not  in 
such  a  form  that  it  would  have  been  humanly  possible 
for  it  to  be  embraced. 

Edward  III.  had  now  his  chance.  Unfortunately 
he  was  too  busy  to  avail  himself  of  it.  He  had  too 
many  irons  in  the  fire  to  trouble  himself  much  about 
Ireland,  If  it  furnished  him  with  a  supply  of  fighting 
men  —  clean  -  limbed,  sinewy  fellows  who  could  run 
all  day  without  a  sign  of  fatigue,  live  on  a  handful 
of  meal,  and  for  a  lodging  feel  luxurious  with  an 
armful  of  hay  and  the  sheltered  side  of  a  stone— it 
was  pretty  much  all  he  wanted.  The  light-armed 
Irish  troop  did  great  things  at  Crecy,  but  they  were 
never  used  at  home.  That  Half-hold,  which  was  the 
ruin  of  Ireland,  and  which  was  to  go  on  being  its  ruin 
for  many  and  many  a  century,  was  never  more 
conspicuous  than  during  the  nominal  rule  of  the 
strongest  and  ablest  of  all  the  Angevin  kings. 

Something,  however,  for  very  shame  he  did  do.  In 
1 36 1  all  absentee  landowners,  already  amounting  to 
no  less  than  sixty-three,  including  the  heads  of  several 
of  the  great  abbeys,  were  summoned  to  Westminster 
and  ordered  to  provide  an  army  to  accompany  Lionel, 
Duke  of  Clarence,  whom  he  had  decided  upon  sending 
over  to  Ireland  as  viceroy. 

.Clarence  was  the  king's  third  son,  and  had  married 
the  only  daughter  and  heiress  of  William  de  Burgh 
(mentioned  a  little  way  back  as  a  baby  heiress),  and 
through  his  wife  had  become  Earl  of  Ulster  and  the 


TWO   SEPARATE   IRELANDS.  I15 

nominal  lord  of  an  enormous  tract  of  the  country 
stretching  from  the  Bay  of  Galvvay  nearly  up  to  the 
coast  of  Donegal.  Most  of  this  had,  however,  already, 
as  we  have  seen,  been  lost.  The  two  rebel  Burkes 
had  got  possession  of  the  Galvvay  portion,  the 
O'Neills,  O'Connors,  and  other  chiefs  had  repossessed 
themselves  of  the  North.  So  completely  indeed  was 
the  latter  lost  that  Ulster — nominally  the  patrimony 
of  the  Duchess  of  Clarence — is  not  even  alluded  to 
by  her  husband  as  part  of  the  country  over  which 
his  government  could  attempt  to  lay  claim. 

The  chief  event  of  this  visit  was  the  summoning  of  ^ 
a  Parliament  at  Kilkenny,  a  Parliament  made  memor- 
able ever  after  by  the  passing  of  what  is  still  known 
as  the  Statute  of  Kilkenny.^  This  Statute,  although  it 
produced  little  effect  at  the  time,  is  an  extremely  im- 
portant one  to  understand,  as  it  enables  us  to  realize 
the  state  to  which  the  country  had  then  got,  and  ex- 
plains, moreover,  a  good  deal  that  would  otherwise  be 
obscure  or  confusing  in  the  after  history  of  Ireland, 

Two  distinct  and  separate  set  of  rules  are  here 
drawn  up  for  two  distinct  and  separate  Irelands. 
One  is  for  the  English  Ireland,  which  then  included 
about  the  area  of  ten  counties,  though  it  afterwards 
shrank  to  four  and  a  few  towns  ;  the  other  is  for  the 
Ireland  of  the  Irish  and  rebellious  English,  which 
included  the  rest  of  the  island  ;  the  object  being,  not 
as  might  be  supposed  at  first  sight,  to  unite  these 
two  closer  together,  but  to  keep  them  as  far  apart  as 
possible ;  to  prevent  them,  in  fact,  if  possible,  from 
ever  uniting. 

'  40  Edward  III.,  Irish  Statutes. 


Il6  THE   STATUTE   OF  KILKENNY. 

A  great  many  provisions  are  laid  down  by  this  Act, 
all  bearing  the  same  aim.  Marriage  and  fosterage 
between  the  English  and  Irish  are  forbidden,  and 
declared  to  be  high  treason.  So,  too,  is  the  supply  of 
all  horses,  weapons,  or  goods  of  any  sort  to  the  Irish  ; 
monks  of  Irish  birth  are  not  to  be  admitted  into  any 
English  monastery,  nor  yet  Irish  priests  into  any 
English  preferment.  The  Irish  dress  and  the  Irish 
mode  of  riding  are  both  punishable.  War  with  the 
natives  is  inculcated  as  a  duty  binding  upon  all  good 
colonists.  None  of  the  Irish,  except  a  certain  number 
of  families  known  as  the  "  Five  Bloods  "  (Qninque 
sanquines),  are  to  be  allowed  to  plead  at  any 
English  court,  and  the  killing  of  an  Irishman  is 
not  to  be  reckoned  as  a  crime.  In  addition  to  this, 
speaking  the  language  of  the  country  is  made  penal. 
Any  one  mixing  with  the  English,  and  known  to  be 
guilty  of  this  offence,  is  to  lose  his  lands  (if  he  has 
any),  and  his  body  to  be  lodged  in  one  of  the  strong 
places  of  the  king  until  he  learns  to  repent  and 
\  amend. 

The  original  words  of  this  part  of  the  Act  are  worth 
quoting.  They  run  as  follows  :  "  Si  nul  Engleys  ou 
Irroies  entre  eux  memes  encontre  c'est  ordinance  et 
de  cei  soit  atteint  soint  sez  terrez  e  tenez  s'il  eit  seizez 
en  les  maines  son  Seignours  immediate,  tanque  q'il 
veigne  a  un  des  places  nostre  Seignour  le  Roy,  et 
trove  sufficient  seurtee  de  prendre  et  user  le  lang 
Englais." 
/^  One  would  like — merely  as  a  matter  of  curiosity — to 
!  know  what  appliances  for  the  study  of  that  not  easiest 
of  languages  were  provided,  and  before  what  tribunal 


THE   ENACTMENTS    OF   DESPAIR.  I17 

the  student  had  to  prove  his  proficiency  in  it.  When, 
too,  we  remember  that  English  was  still,  to  a  great 
degree,  tabooed  in  England  itself ;  that  the  official 
and  familiar  language  of  the  Normans  was  French, 
that  French  of  which  the  Statutes  of  Kilkenny  are 
themselves  a  specimen,  the  difficulty  of  keeping  within 
the  law  at  this  point  must,  it  will  be  owned,  have  been 
considerable. 

"  In  all  this  it  is  manifest,"  says  Sir  John  Davis, 
"  that  such  as  had  the  government  of  Ireland  did 
indeed  intend  to  make  a  perpetual  enmity  between 
the  English  and  the  Irish,  pretending  that  the  English 
should  in  the  end  root  out  the  Irish  ;  which,  the  English 
not  being  able  to  do,  caused  a  perpetual  war  between 
the  two  nations,  which  continued  four  hundred  and 
odd  years,  and  would  have  lasted  unto  the  world's 
end,  if  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  the  Irish  had  not 
been  broken  and  conquered  by  the  sword." 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  very  ferocity — as  it  seems 
to  us  the  utter  and  inconceivable  ferocity — of  these 
enactments  is  in  the  main  a  proof  of  the  pitiable  and 
deplorable  weakness  of  those  who  passed  them,  and 
to  this  weakness  we  must  look  for  their  excuse,  so  far 
as  they  admitted  of  excuse  at  all.  Weakness,  especially 
weakness  in  high  places,  is  apt  to  fall  back  upon 
cruelty  to  supply  false  strength,  and  a  government 
that  found  itself  face  to  face  with  an  entire  country  in 
arms,  absolutely  antagonistic  to  and  defiant  of  its 
authority,  may  easily  have  felt  itself  driven  by  sheer 
despair  into  some  such  false  and  futile  exhibitions  of 
power.  The  chief  sufferers  by  these  statutes  were 
not  the  inhabitants  of  the  wilder  districts,  who,  for  the 


Il8  THE   STATUTE   OF  KILKENNY. 

most  part,  escaped  out  of  reach  of  its  provisions, 
beyond  that  narrow  area  where  the  Dublin  judges 
travelled  their  little  rounds,  and  who  were  governed 
still — when  governed  at  all— by  the  Brehon  laws  and 
Hrehon  judges,  much  as  in  the  days  of  Brian  Boru. 
The  real  victims  were  the  unhappy  settlers  of  the  Pale 
and  such  natives  as  had  thrown  in  their  lot  with 
them,  and  who  were  robbed  and  harassed  alike  by 
those  without  and  those  within.  The  feudal  s\'stem 
was  one  that  always  bore  hardly  upon  the  poor,  and 
in  Ireland  the  feudal  system  was  at  its  very  worst. 
There  was  no  central  authority  ;  no  one  to  interpose 
between  the  baronage  and  the  tillers  of  the  soil  ;  and 
that  state  of  things  which  in  England  only  existed 
during  comparatively  short  periods,  and  under  excep- 
tionally weak  rulers,  in  Ireland  was  continuous  and 
chronic.  The  consequence  was  that  men  escaped  more 
and  more  out  of  this  intolerable  tyranny  into  the  com- 
parative freedom  which  lay  beyond  ;  forgot  that  they 
had  ever  been  English ;  allowed  their  beards,  in  defiance 
of  regulations,  to  grow  ;  pulled  their  hair  down  into  a 
"gibbes"  upon  their  foreheads;  adopted  fosterage, 
gossipage,  and  all  the  other  pleasant  contraband  Irish 
customs  ;  married  Irish  wives,  and  became,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes.  Irishmen.  The  English  power 
had  no  more  dangerous  enemies  in  the  days  that  were 
to  come  than  these  men  of  English  descent,  whose 
fathers  had  come  over  to  found  a  new  kingdom  for  her 
I    upon  the  western  side  of  St.  George's  Channel. 


XVII. 


RICHARD   II.    IN   IRELAND. 


Richard  the  Second's  reign  is  a  more  defi- 
nite epoch  for  the  Irish  historian  than  many  more 
striking  ones,  for  the  simple  reason  of  two  visits 
having  been  paid  by  him  to  Ireland.  The  first  of  these 
was  in  1394,  when  he  landed  at  Waterford  with  30,000 
archers  and  40,000  men  at  arms,  an  immense  army 
for  that  age,  and  for  Ireland  it  was  held  an  irresis- 
tible one. 

It  was  certainly  high  time  for  some  steps  to  be 
taken.  In  all  directions  the  interests  of  the  colonists 
were  going  to  the  wall.  Not  only  in  Ulster,  Munster, 
and  Connaught,  but  even  in  the  East  of  Ireland,  the 
natives  were  fast  repossessing  themselves  of  all  the 
lands  from  which  they  had  been  driven.  A  great 
chieftain.  Art  McMurrough,  had  made  himself  master 
of  the  greater  part  of  Leinster,  and  only  by  a  humili- 
ating use  of  "  Black  Rent,"  could  he  be  kept  at  bay. 
The  towns  were  in  a  miserable  state  ;  Limerick,  Cork, 
Waterford  had  all  again  and  again  been  attacked,  and 
could  with  difficulty  defend  themselves.  The  Wicklow 
tribes  swarmed  down  to  the  very  walls  of  Dublin,  and 
carried  the  cattle  off  from  under  the  noses  of  the  citizens. 


120  RICHARD  II.   IN  IRELAND. 

The  judges'  rounds  were  getting  yearly  shorter  and 
shorter.  The  very  deputy  could  hardly  ride  half-a- 
dozen  miles  from  the  castle  gates  without  danger 
of  being  set  upon,  captured,  and  carried  off  for 
ransom. 

Richard  flattered  himself  that  he  had  only  to 
appear  to  conquer.  He  was  keen  to  achieve  some 
military  glory,  and  Ireland  seemed  an  easy  field  to 
win  it  upon.  Like  many  another  before  and  after  him, 
he  found  the  task  harder  than  it  seemed.  The  great 
chiefs  came  in  readily  enough  ;  O'Connors,  O'Briens, 
O'Neills, even  the  turbulent  McMurrough  himself,  some 
seventy-five  of  them  in  all.  The  king  entertained  them 
sumptuously,  as  Henry  H.  had  entertained  their  an- 
cestors two  centuries  before.  They  engaged  to  be 
loyal,  and  to  answer  for  the  loyalty  of  their  dependants 
— with  some  mental  reservations  we  must  conclude. 
In  return  for  this  submission  the  king  knighted  the 
four  chiefs  just  named,  a  somewhat  incongruous  piece 
of  courtesy  it  must  be  owned.  Shortly  after  his 
knighthood.  Art  McMurrough,  "  Sir  Art,"  was  thrown 
into  prison  on  suspicion.  He  was  released  before 
long,  but  the  release  failed  to  wipe  out  the  affront, 
and  the  angry  chief  retired,  nursing  fierce  vengeance, 
to  his  forests. 

Richard  remained  in  Ireland  nine  months,  during 
which  he  achieved  nothing,  and  departed  leaving 
the  government  in  the  hands  of  his  heir-presump- 
tive, Roger  Mortimer,  Earl  of  March,  the  grandson 
of  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence,  and,  therefore,  in  right  of 
his  mother,  Earl  of  Ulster,  and  the  nominal  owner  of 
an  immense  territory,  covering  nearly  a  third  of  the 


ART  MCMURROUGH.  121 

island,  barely  one  acre  of  which,  however,  remained  in 
his  hands. 

The  king  had  not  been  gone  long  before  Art 
McMurrough  rose  again.  The  young  deputy  was  in 
Wicklow,  endeavouring  to  carry  out  a  projected 
colony.  Hearing  of  this  outbreak,  he  hastened  into 
Meath.  An  encounter  took  place  near  Kells.  Art 
McMurrough,  at  the  head  of  his  own  men,  aided  by 
some  wild  levies  of  O'Tooles  and  O'Nolans,  com- 
pletely defeated  the  royal  army,  and  after  the  battle 
the  heir  of  the  English  Crown  was  found  amongst  the 
slain. 

This  Art  McMurrough,  or  Art  Kavangh,  as  he  is 
sometimes  called,  was  a  man  of  very  much  more  for- 
midable stamp  than  most  of  the  nameless  freebooters, 
native  or  Norman,  who  filled  the  country.  His 
fashion  of  making  his  onset  seems  to  have  been 
tremendous.  Under  him  the  wild  horsemen  and  "naked 
knaves,"  armed  only  with  skeans  and  darts,  sent  terror 
into  the  breast  of  their  armour-clad  antagonists.  One 
of  the  few  early  illustrations  of  Irish  history  exta.nt 
represents  him  as  charging  at  breakneck  pace  down 
a  hill.  We  are  told  that  "  he  rode  a  horse  without  a 
saddle  or  housing,  which  was  so  fine  and  good  that 
it  cost  him  four  hundred  cows.  In  coming  down  the 
hill  it  galloped  so  hard  that  in  my  opinion,"  says  a  con- 
temporary writer, "  I  never  in  all  my  life  saw  hare,  deer, 
sheep,  or  other  animal,  I  declare  to  you  for  a  certainty, 
run  with  such  speed.  In  his  right  hand  he  bore  a 
great  dart,  which  he  cast  with  much  skill."  ^  No 
wonder  that  such  a  rider,  upon  such  a  horse,  should 

'  *'  Metrical  History  of  the  Deposition  of  Richnrd  11." 


122  RICHARD   II.   IN  IRELAND. 

have  struck  terror  into  the  very  souls  of  the  colonists, 
and  induced  them  to  comply  with  any  demands,  how- 
ever rapacious  and  humiliating,  rather  than  have  to 
meet  him  face  to  face  in  the  field. 

The  news  of  McMurrough's  victory  and  of  the  death 
of  his  heir  brought  Richard  back  again  to  Ireland.  He 
returned  in  hot  wrath  resolved  this  time  to  crush  the 
delinquents.  At  home  everything  seemed  safe.  John 
of  Gaunt  was  recently  dead  ;  Henry  of  Lancaster  still 
in  exile  ;  the  Percys  had  been  driven  over  the  border 
into  Scotland.  All  his  enemies  seemed  to  be  crushed 
or  extinguished.  With  an  army  nearly  as  large  as 
before,  and  with  vast  supplies  of  stores  and  arms,  he 
landed  at  Waterford  in  1399. 

This  time  Art  McMurrough  quietly  awaited  his 
coming  in  a  wood  not  far  from  the  landing-place.  He 
had  only  3,000  men  about  him,  so  prudently  declined 
to  be  drawn  from  that  safe  retreat  of  the  assailed. 
The  king  and  his  army  sat  down  on  the  outskirts  of 
the  wood.  It  was  July,  but  the  weather  was  despe- 
rately wet.  The  ground  was  in  a  swamp,  the  rain 
incessant ;  there  was  nothing  but  green  oats  for  the 
horses.  The  whole  army  suffered  from  damp  and 
exposure.  Some  labourers  were  hastily  collected,  and 
an  attempt  made  to  cut  down  the  wood.  This,  too, 
as  might  be  expected,  proved  a  failure,  and  Richard, 
in  disgust  and  vexation,  broke  up  his  camp,  and  with 
great  difficulty,  dragging  his  unwieldy  army  after  him, 
fell  back  upon  Dublin. 

The  Leinster  chief  was  not  slow  to  avail  himself  of 
the  situation.  He  now  took  a  high  hand,  and  demanded 
to   be  put  in  possession  of  certain  lands  he  claimed 


RICHARD'S  RETURN   TO   EXGLAXD.  I23 

through  his  wife,  as  well  as  to  retain  his  chieftaincy. 
A  treaty  was  set  on  foot,  varied  by  the  despatch  of  a 
flying  column  to  scour  his  country.  In  the  middle  of 
the  negotiation  startling  news  arrived.  Henry  of 
Lancaster  had  landed  at  Ravenspur,  and  all  England 
was  in  arms.  The  king  set  off  to  return,  but  bad 
weather  and  misleading  counsel  kept  him  another 
sixteen  days  on  Irish  soil.  It  was  a  fatal  sixteen 
days.  When  he  reached  Milford  Haven  it  was  to  find 
the  roads  blocked,  and  to  be  met  by  the  news  that  all 
was  lost.  The  army  of  Welshmen,  gathered  by  Salis- 
bury, had  dispersed,  finding  that  the  king  did  not 
arrive.  His  own  army  of  30,000  men  caught  the 
panic,  and  melted  equally  rapidly.  He  tried  to  negotiate 
with  his  cousin,  but  too  late.  At  Chester  he  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  victor,  and,  within  a  few  weeks 
after  leaving  Ireland,  had  passed  to  a  pri.bon,  and  from 
there  to  a  grave.  He  was  the  last  English  king  to  set 
foot  upon  its  soil  until  nearly  exactly  three  centuries 
later,  when  two  rivals  met  to  try  conclusions  upon  the 
same  blood-stained  arena. 

From  this  out  matters  grew  from  bad  to  worse- 
Little  or  no  attempt  was  made  to  enforce  the  law  save 
within  the  ever-narrowing  boundary  of  what  about 
this  time  came  to  be  known  as  the  Pale.  Outside, 
Ireland  grew  to  be  more  and  more  the  Ireland  of 
the  natives.  Art  McMurrough  ruled  over  his 
own  country  triumphantly  till  his  death,  and  levied 
tribute  right  and  left  with  even-handed  imparti- 
ality upon  his  neighbours.  "  Black  Rent,"  indeed, 
began  to  take  the  form  of  a  regularly  recognized 
tribute  ;    O'Neill    receiving    ^"'40    a    year    from    the 


124 


RICHARD   II.   IN  IRELAND. 


county  of  Louth,  O'Connor  of  Offaly,  £60  from 
the  county  of  Meath,  and  others  in  like  proportion. 
In  despair  of  any  assistance  from  England  some  of 
the  colonists  formed  themselves  into  a  fraternity 
which  they  called  the  "  Brotherhood  of  St.  George," 
consisting  of  some  thirteen  geatlemen  of  the  Pale 
with  a  hundred  archers  and  a  handful  of  horsemen 
under  them. 

The  Irish  Government  continued  to  pass  Act  after 
Act,  each  more  and  more  ferocious  as  it  became  more 
and  more  ineffective.  Colonists  were  now  empowered 
to  take  and  behead  any  natives  whom  they  found 
marauding,  or  whom  they  even  suspected  of  any  such 
intention.  All  friendly  dealing  with  natives  was  to 
be  punished  as  felony.  All  who  failed  to  shave 
their  upper  lip  at  least  once  a  fortnight  were  to  be 
imprisoned  and  their  goods  seized.  Englishmen 
who  married  Irish  women  were  to  be  accounted  guilty 
of  high  treason,  and  hung,  drawn,  and  quartered  at 
the  convenience  of  the  viceroy.  Such  feeble  ferocity 
tells  its  own  tale.  Like  some  angry  shrew  the  un- 
happy executive  was  getting  louder  and  shriller  the 
less  Its  denunciations  were  attended  to. 


XVIII. 

THE   DEEPEST   DEPTHS. 

The  most  salient  fact  in  Irish  history  Is  perhaps 
its  monotony.  If  that  statement  is  a  bull  it  is  one 
that  must  be  forgiven  for  the  sake  of  the  truth  it  con- 
veys. Year  after  year,  decade  after  decade,  century 
after  century,  we  seem  to  go  swimming  slowly  and 
wearily  on  through  a  vague  sea  of  confusion  and 
disorder  ;  of  brutal  deeds  and  yet  more  brutal  retali- 
ations ;  of  misgoveriiment  and  anarchy;  of  a  confusion 
so  penetrating  and  all-persuasive  that  the  mind  fairly 
refuses  to  grapple  with  it.  Even  killing — exciting  as 
an  incident — becomes  monotonous  when  it  is  con- 
tinued adinfinit2iiii,zx\di  no  other  occurrence  ev^er  comes 
to  vary  its  tediousness.  Campion  the  Elizabethan 
historian,  whose  few  pages  are  a  perfect  magazine 
of  verbal  quaintness,  apologizes  in  the  preface  to  his 
"  lovyng  reader,  for  that  from  the  time  of  Cambrensis 
to  that  of  Henry  VIII."  he  is  obliged  to  make  short 
work  of  his  intermediable  periods ;  "  because  that 
nothing  is  therein  orderly  written,  and  that  the  same 
is  time  beyond  any  man's  memory,  wherefore  I 
scramble  forward  with  such  records  as  could  be 
sought  up,  and  am  enforced  to  be  the  briefer." 


126  THE   DEEPEST   DEPTHS. 

"  Scrambling  forward  "  is,  indeed,  exactly  what  de- 
scribes the  process.  We,  too,  must  be  content  "  to 
be  the  briefer,"  and  to  "  scramble  forward "  across 
these  intermediate  and  comparatively  eventless  periods 
in  order  to  reach  what  lies  beyond.  The  age  of  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses  is  one  of  great  gloom  and  con- 
fusion in  England  ;  in  Ireland  it  is  an  all  but  com- 
plete blank.  What  intermittent  interest  in  its 
affairs  had  been  awakened  on  the  other  side  of  the 
channel  had  all  but  wholly  died  away  in  that  pro- 
tracted struggle.  That  its  condition  was  miserable, 
almost  beyond  conception,  is  all  that  we  know  for 
certain.  In  England,  although  civil  war  was  raging, 
and  the  baronage  were  energetically  slaughtering  one 
another,  the  mass  of  the  people  seem  for  the  most 
part  to  have  gone  unscathed.  The  townsfolk  were 
undisturbed  ;  the  law  was  protected ;  the  law  officers 
went  their  rounds ;  there  seems  even  to  have  been 
little  general  rapine  and  pillage.  The  Church,  still 
at  its  full  strength,  watched  jealously  over  its  own 
rights  and  over  the  rights  of  those  whom  it  pro- 
tected. In  Ireland,  although  there  was  nothing  that 
approached  to  the  dignity  of  civil  war,  the  condition 
of  the  country  seems  to  have  been  one  of  uninterrupted 
and  almost  universal  carnage,  pillage,  and  rapine. 
The  baronage  of  the  Pale  raided  upon  the  rest  of  the 
country,  and  the  rest  of  the  country  raided  upon  the 
Pale.  Even  amongst  churchmen  it  was  much  the 
same.  Although  there  was  no  religious  dissension, 
and  heresy  was  unknown,  the  jealousy  between  the 
churchmen  of  the  two  rival  races,  seems  to  have  been 
as  deep  as  between  the  laymen,  and  their  hatred  of  one 


THE   IRISH   PARLIAMENT.  I27 

another  probably  even  greater.  As  has  been  seen  in 
a  former  chapter,  no  priest  or  monk  of  Irish  blood 
was  ever  admitted  into  an  English  living  or  monastery, 
and  the  rule  appears  to  have  been  quite  equally 
applicable  the  other  way. 

The  means,  too,  for  keeping  these  discordant  ele- 
ments in  check  were  ludicrously  inefficient.  The 
whole  military  establishment  during  the  greater  part 
of  this  century  consisted  of  some  80  archers,  and  about 
40  "  spears  ;  "  the  whole  revenue  amounted  to  a  (ew 
hundred  pounds  per  annum.  The  Parliament  was  a 
small  and  irregular  body  of  barons  and  knights  of  the 
shires,  with  a  few  burgesses,  unwillingly  summoned 
from  the  towns,  and  a  certain  number  of  bishops  and 
abbots,  the  latter,  owing  to  the  disturbed  state  of  the 
country,  being  generally  represented  by  their  proctors. 
It  was  summoned  at  long  intervals,  and  met  some- 
times in  Dublin,  sometimes  in  Drogheda,  at  other 
times  in  Kilkenny,  as  occasion  suggested.  Even  when 
it  did  meet  legislation  vvas  rarely  attempted,  and  its 
office  was  confined  mainly  to  the  voting  of  subsidies. 
The  country  simply  drifted  at  its  own  pleasure  down 
the  road  to  ruin,  and  by  the  time  the  battle  of 
Bosworth  was  fought,  the  deepest  depths  of  anarchy 
had  probably  been  sounded. 

The  seaport  towns  alone  kept  up  some  little 
semblance  of  order  and  self-government,  and  seem 
to  have  shown  some  slight  capacity  for  self-defence. 
In  1412,  Waterford  distinguished  itself  by  the  spirited 
defence  of  its  walls  against  the  O'Driscolls,  a  piratical 
clan  of  West  Cork,  and  the  following  year  sent  a  ship 
into  the  enemy's  stronghold  of  Baltimore,  whose  crew 


128  THE   DEEPEST  DEPTHS. 

seized  upon  the  chief  himself,  his  three  brothers,  his 
son,  his  uncle,  and  his  wife,  and  carried  them  off  in 
triumph  to  Waterford,  a  feat  which  the  annals  of  the 
town  commemorate  with  laudable  pride.  Dublin,  too, 
showed  a  similar  spirit,  and  fitted  out  some  small 
vessels  which  it  sent  on  a  marauding  expedition  to 
Scotland,  in  reward  for  which  its  chief  magistrate, 
who  had  up  to  that  time  been  a  Provost,  was  invested 
with  the  title  of  Mayor.  "  The  king  granted  them 
license,"  says  Camden,  "to  choose  every  year  a  Mayor 
and  two  baliffs."  Also  that  its  Mayor  "  should  have  a 
gilt  sword  carried  before  him  for  ever." 

Several  eminent  figures  appear  amongst  the  "  ruck 
of  empty  names "  which  fill  up  the  list  of  fif- 
teenth-century Irish  viceroys.  Most  of  these  were 
mere  birds  of  passage,  who  made  a  i&w  experiments 
at  government  —  conciliatory  or  the  reverse,  as  the 
case  might  be — and  so  departed  again.  Sir  John 
Talbot,  the  scourge  of  France,  and  antagonist  of  the 
Maid  of  Orleans,  was  one  of  these.  From  all  ac- 
counts he  seems  to  have  quite  kept  up  his  character 
in  Ireland.  The  native  writers  speak  of  him  as  a 
second  Herod.  The  colonist  detested  him  for  his 
exactions,  while  his  soldiery  were  a  scourge  to  every 
district  they  were  quartered  upon.  He  rebuilt  the 
bridge  of  Athy,  however,  and  fortified  it  so  as  to  defend 
that  portion  of  the  Pale,  and  succeeded  in  keeping 
the  O'Moores,  O'Byrnes,  and  the  rest  of  the  native 
marauders  to  some  degree  at  bay. 

In  1449,  Richard,  Duke  of  York,  was  sent  to  Ireland 
upon  a  sort  of  honorary  exile.  He  took  the  oppo- 
site tack  of  conciliation.       Although  Ormond  was  a 


RICHARD,   DUKE   OF   YORK.  12g 

prominent  member  of  the  Lancastrian  party,  he  at 
once  made  gracious  overtures  to  him,  Desmond,  too, 
he  won  over  by  his  courtesy,  and  upon  the  birth  of 
his  son  George — afterwards  the  kickless  Duke  of 
Clarence — the  rival  earls  acted  as  joint  sponsors, 
and  when,  in  145 1,  he  left  Ireland,  he  appointed 
Ormond  his  deputy  and  representative. 

Nine  years  later  he  came  back,  this  time  as  a  fugi- 
tive. The  popularity  which  he  had  already  won  stood 
him  then  in  good  stead.  Seizing  upon  the  govern- 
ment, he  held  it  in  the  teeth  of  the  king  and  Parlia- 
ment for  more  than  a  year.  The  news  of  the  battle 
of  Northampton  tempted  him  to  England.  His 
son,  the  Earl  of  March,  had  been  victorious,  and 
Henry  VI.  was  a  prisoner.  He  was  not  destined, 
however,  to  profit  by  the  success  of  his  own  side.  In 
a  temporary  Lancastrian  triumph  he  was  outnum- 
bered, and  killed  by  the  troops  of  Queen  Margaret  at 
Wakefield. 

His  Irish  popularity  descended  to  his  son.  A 
considerable  number  of  Irish  Yorkist  partisans,  led 
by  the  Earl  of  Kildare,  fought  beside  the  latter 
at  the  decisive  and  sanguinary  battle  of  Towton, 
at  which  battle  the  rival  Earl  of  Ormond,  leader  of 
the  Irish  Lancastrians,  was  taken  prisoner,  beheaded 
by  the  victors,  and  all  his  property  attained,  a  blow 
from  which  the  Butlers  were  long  in  recovering. 

No  other  great  Irish  house  suffered  seriously.  In 
England  the  older  baronage  were  all  but  utterly  swept 
away  by  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  only  a  few  here  and 
there  surviving  its  carnage.  In  Ireland  it  was  not  so. 
A  certain  number  of  Anglo-Norman  names  disappear 


130  THE   DEEPEST   DEPTHS. 

at  this  point  from  its  annals,  but  the  greater  num- 
ber of  those  with  which  the  reader  has  become 
familiar  continue  to  be  found  in  their  now  long- 
established  homes.  The  Desmonds  and  De  Burghs 
still  reigned  undisputed  and  unchallenged  over  their 
several  remote  lordships.  Ulster,  indeed,  had  long 
since  become  wholly  Irish,  but  within  the  Pale  the 
minor  barons  of  Norman  descent — Fingals,  Gorman- 
stons,  Dunsanys,  Trimbelstons  and  others — remained 
where  their  Norman  fathers  had  established  them- 
selves, and  where  their  descendants  for  the  most  part 
may  be  found  still.  The  house  of  Kildare  had  grown 
in  strength  during  the  temporary  collapse  of  its  rival, 
and  from  this  out  for  nearly  a  century  towers  high 
over  every  other  Irish  house.  The  Duke  of  York 
was  the  last  royal  viceroy  who  actually  held  the 
sword.  Others,  though  nominated,  never  came  over, 
and  in  their  absence  the  Kildares  remained  omnipo- 
tent, generally  as  deputies,  and  even  when  that  office 
was  for  a  while  confided  to  other  hands,  their  power 
was  hardly  diminished.  Only  the  barren  title  of  Lord- 
Lieutenant  was  withheld,  and  was  as  a  rule  bestowed 
upon  some  royal  personage,  several  times  upon  child- 
ren, once  in  the  case  of  Edward  IV.'s  son  upon  an 
actual  infant  in  arms. 

In  1480,  Gerald,  eighth  Earl  of  Kildare,  called  by 
his  own  following,  Geroit  Mor,  or  Gerald  the  Great, 
became  deputy,  and,  from  that  time  forward  under 
five  successive  kings,  and  during  a  period  of  33  years, 
he  "  reigned  "  with  hardly  an  interval  until  his  death 

in  1513- 

Geroit  Mor   is  perhaps   the  most  important  chief 


GEROIT   MOR. 


131 


governor  who  ruled  Ireland  upon  thorough-going 
Irish  principles.  "  A  mighty  man  of  stature,  full  of 
honour  and  courage."  Stanihurst  describes  him  as 
being  "A  knight  in  valour;"  and  "princely  and 
religious  in  his  words  and  judgments  "  is  the  flatter- 
ing report  of  the  "  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters." 
"  His  name  awed  his  enemies  more  than  his  army,'' 
says  Camden.  "  The  olde  earle  being  soone  hotte  and 
soone  cold  was  of  the  Englishe  well  beloved,"  is 
another  report.  "In  hys  warres  hee  used  a  retchlesse 
(reckless)  kynde  of  diligence,  or  headye  careless- 
nesse,"  is  a  less  strong  commendaJtion,  but  probably 
not  less  true. 

He  was -a  gallant  man  unquestionably,  and  as  far 
as  can  be  seen  an  honest  and  a  well-intentioned  one, 
but  his  policy  was  a  purely  personal,  or  at  most  a 
provincial,  one.  As  for  the  interests  of  the  country 
at  large  they  seem  hardly  to  have  come  within  his 
ken.  That  fashion  of  looking  at  the  matter  had  now 
so  long  been  the  established  rule  that  it  had  probably 
ceased  indeed  to  be  regarded  as  a  failing. 


FIGURES  ON   KILCARN   FONT,    MEATH. 


XTX. 


THE   KILDARES  IN  THE  ASCENDANT. 


When  the  Battle  of  Bosworth  brought  the  adherents 
of  the  Red  Rose  back  to  triumph,  Gerald  Mor  was 
still  Lord-deputy.  He  was  not  deposed,  however,  on 
that  account,  although  the  Butlers  were  at  once  rein- 
stated in  their  own  property,  and  Sir  Thomas  Butler 
was  created  Earl  of  Ormond.  According  to  a  pre- 
cedent now  prevailing  for  several  reigns,  the  Lord- 
Lieutenancy  was  conferred  upon  the  Duke  of  Bed- 
ford, the  king's  uncle,  Kildare  continuing,  however, 
practically  to  exercise  all  the  functions  of  govern- 
ment as  his  deputy. 

A  dangerous  plot,  started  by  the  discomfited 
Yorkist  faction,  broke  out  in  Ireland  in  1487.  An 
impostor,  named  Lambert  Simnel,  was  sent  by  the 
Duchess  of  Burgundy,  and  trained  to  simulate  the 
son  of  Clarence  who,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  been 
born  in  Ireland,  and  whose  son  was  therefore  supposed 
to  have  a  special  claim  on  that  country.  Two  thou- 
sand German  mercenaries  were  sent  tvith  him  to 
support  his  pretensions. 

This  Lambert  Simnel  seems  to  have  been  a  youth 
of   some    talent,    and    to    have    filled    his    ugly    im- 


S^^TH  HQMM  SCHOOL, 


9      Longitude  West  8  nf  Greenwich 


134  ^^^   KILDARES   L\    THE   ASCENDANT. 

poster's  rS/e  with  as  much  grace  as  it  admitted  of 
Bacon,  in  his  history  of  the  reign,  tells  us  that 
"  he  was  a  comely  youth,  not  without  some  extra- 
ordinary dignity  of  grace  and  aspect."  The  fashion 
in  which  he  retailed  his  sufferings,  pleaded  his  youth, 
and  appealed  to  the  proverbial  generosity  of  the  Irish 
people,  to  protect  a  hapless  prince,  robbed  of  his 
throne  and  his  birthright,  seems  to  have  produced 
an  immense  effect.  Kildare,  there  is  reason  to 
suspect,  was  privy  to  the  plot,  but  of  others  there  is 
no  reason  to  think  this,  and  with  a  single  exception — 
that  of  the  Earl  of  Howth — all  the  lords  of  the  Pale 
and  many  of  the  bishops,  including  the  Archbishop  of 
Dublin,  seem  to  have  welcomed  the  lad — he  was  only 
fifteen — with  the  utmost  enthusiasm,  an  enthusiasm 
which  Henry's  production  of  the  real  son  of  Clarence 
had  no  effect  at  all  in  diminishing. 

Lambert  Simnel  was  conducted  in  high  state  to 
Dublin,  and  there  crowned  in  the  presence  of  the 
Earl  of  Kildare,  the  chancellor,  and  other  State  officers. 
The  crown  used  for  the  purpose  was  taken  off  the 
head  of  a  statue  of  The  Virgin  in  St.  Mary's  Abbey, 
and — a  quainter  piece  of  ceremonial  still — the  youth- 
ful monarch  was,  after  the  ceremony,  hoisted  upon 
the  shoulders  of  the  tallest  man  in  Ireland,  "  Great 
Darcy  of  Flatten,"  and,  in  this  position,  promenaded 
through  the  streets  of  Dublin  so  as  to  be  seen  by  the 
people,  after  which  he  was  taken  back  in  triumph  to 
the  castle. 

His  triumph  was  not,  however,  long-lived.  Em- 
boldened by  this  preliminary  success,  his  partizans 
took  him  across  the  sea  and  landed  with  a  considerable 


DEFEAT  OF  SIMNEL.  I35 

force  at  Fondray,  in  Lancashire,  the  principal  leaders 
on  this  occasion  being  the  Earl  of  Lincoln,  Thomas 
Fitzgerald,  brother  to  the  Earl  of  Kildare,  Lord 
Lovell,  and  Martin  Schwartz,  the  commander  of  the 
German  forces. 

The  enthusiasm  that  was  expected  to  break  out 
on  their  arrival  failed  however  to  come  off  "  Their 
snowballs,"  as  Bacon  puts  it,  "  did  not  gather  as 
they  went."  A  battle  was  fought  at  Stoke,  at 
which  4,000  of  the  rebels  fell,  including  Thomas  Fitz- 
gerald, the  Earl  of  Lincoln,  and  the  German  general 
Martin  Schwartz,  while  Lambert  Simnel  with  his 
tutor,  Simon  the  priest,  fell  into  the  king's  hands,  who 
spared  their  lives,  and  appointed  the  former  to  the 
office  of  turnspit,  an  office  which  he  held  for  a 
number  of  years,  being  eventually  promoted  to  that 
of  falconer,  and  as  guardian  of  the  king's  hawks  he 
lived  and  died. 

He  was  not  the  only  culprit  whom  Henry  was 
willing  to  pardon.  Clemency  indeed  was  his  strong 
point,  and  he  extended  it  without  stint  again  and 
again  to  his  Irish  rebels.  He  despatched  Sir  Richard 
Edgecombe,  a  member  of  the  royal  household* 
shortly  afterwards  upon  a  mission  of  conciliation 
to  Ireland.  The  royal  pardon  was  to  be  extended  to 
Kildare  and  the  rest  of  the  insurgents  on  condition 
of  their  submission.  Kildare's  pride  stood  out  for  a 
while  against  submission  on  any  conditions,  but  the 
Royal  Commissioner  was  firm,  and  the  terms,  easy  ones 
it  must  be  owned,  were  at  last  accepted,  and  an  oath 
of  allegiance  sworn  to.  Kildare,  thereupon,  was  con- 
firmed in  his  deputyship,  and  Sir  Richard  Edgecombe 


136  THE  KILDARES  IN   THE  ASCENDANT. 

having  first  partaken  of  "much  excellent  good  cheere" 
at  the  earl's  castle  at  Maynooth,  returned  peaceably 
to  England, 

The  Irish  primate,  one  of  the  few  ecclesiastics 
who  had  refused  to  support  the  impostor,  was  then, 
as  it  happened,  in  London,  and  placed  strongly  before 
the  king  the  impolicy  of  continuing  Kildare  in 
ofifice.  Apparently  his  remonstrance  had  its  effect, 
for  Henry  issued  a  summons  to  the  deputy  and 
all  the  Irish  nobility  to  attend  at  Court,  one  which 
was  obeyed  with  hardly  an  exception.  A  dramatic 
turn  is  given  to  this  visit  by  the  fact  that  Lambert 
Simnel,  the  recently  crowned  king,  was  promoted  for 
the  occasion  to  serve  wine  at  dinner  to  his  late  Irish 
subjects.  The  poor  scullion  did  his  office  with  what 
grace  he  might,  but  no  one,  it  is  said,  would  touch  the 
wine  until  it  came  to  the  turn  of  the  Earl  of  Howth, 
the  one  Irish  peer,  as  we  have  seen,  who  had  declined 
to  accept  the  impostor  in  his  heyday  of  success.  "  Nay, 
but  bring  me  the  cup  if  the  wine  be  good,"  quoth  he, 
being  a  merry  gentleman,  "  and  I  shall  drink  it  both 
for  its  sake  and  mine  own,  and  for  thee  also  as  thou 
art,  so  I  leave  thee,  a  poor  innocent  !  " 

Howth,  whose  speech  is  recorded  by  his  own  family 
chronicler,  received  three  hundred  pounds  as  a  reward 
for  his  loyalty,  the  rest  returned  as  they  came,  lucky, 
they  must  have  felt  under  the  circumstances,  in 
returning  at  all. 

Simnel  was  not  the  last  Yorkist  impostor  who 
found  credit  and  an  asylum  in  Ireland.  Peterkin, 
or  Perkin,  Warbeck  was  the  next  whom  the  inde- 
fatigable Duchess  of  Burgundy  started  on  the  same 


PERKIN   WARBECK.  I37 

stage  and  upon  the  same  errand.  This  time  the  prince 
supposed  to  be  personated  was  the  youngest  son 
of  Edward  IV.,  one  of  the  two  princes  murdered  in 
the  tower.  He  is  also  occasionally  spoken  of  as  a 
son  of  Clarence,  and  sometimes  as  an  illegitimate  son 
of  Richard  III. — any  royal  personage,' in  fact,  whose 
age  happened  to  suit.  In  spite  of  the  slight  ambiguity 
which  overhung  his  princely  origin,  he  was  received 
with  high  honour  in  Cork,  and  having  appealed  to  the 
Earls  of  Desmond  and  Kildare,  was  accepted  by  the 
former  with  open  arms.  "You  Irish  would  crown 
apes ! "  Henry  afterwards  said,  not  indeed  unwar- 
rantably. This  time  Kildare  was  more  cautious, 
though  his  brother.  Sir  James  Fitzgerald,  warmly 
espoused  the  cause  of  the  impostor.  Perkin  War- 
beck  remained  in  Ireland  about  a  year,  when  he  was 
invited  to  France  and,  for  a  while,  became  the  centre 
of  the  disaffected  Yorkists  there.  He  was  a  very  poor 
specimen  of  the  genus  impostor,  and  seems  even  to 
have  been  destitute  of  the  commonplace  quality  of 
courage. 

In  spite  of  the  unusual  prudence  displayed  by  him 
on  this  occasion,  Kildare  was,  in  1497,  removed 
from  the  deputyship,  which  was  for  a  time  vested 
in  Walter  Fitzsimons,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  a  declared 
enemy  of  the  Geraldines.  Sir  James  Ormond  who 
represented  his  brother,  the  earl,  was  appointed  Lord 
Treasurer  in  place  of  the  Baron  of  Portlester,  Kildare's 
uncle,  who  had  held  the  office  for  thirty-eight  years. 
Fresh  quarrels  thereupon  broke  out  between  the  Butlers 
and  the  rival  house,  and  each  harassed  the  lands  of 
the  other  in  the  usual  approved  style.    A  meeting  was 


138  THE   KILDARES   IN   THE   ASCENDANT. 

at  last  arranged  to  take  place  in  St.  Patrick's  Cathe- 
dral between  the  two  leaders,  but  a  riot  breaking  out 
Sir  James  barred  himself  up  in  alarm  in  the  Chapter 
House.  Kildare  arriving  at  the  door  with  offers  of 
peace,  a  hole  had  to  be  cut  to  enable  the  two  to  com- 
municate. Sir  James  fearing  treachery  declined  to  put 
out  his  hand,  whereupon  Kildare  boldly  thrust  in  his, 
and  the  rivals  shook  hands.  The  door  was  then 
opened  ;  they  embraced,  and  for  a  while  peace  was 
patched  up.  The  door,  with  the  hole  still  in  it,  was 
extant  up  to  the  other  day. 

The  quarrels  between  these  two  great  houses  were 
interminable,  and  kept  the  whole  Pale  and  the  greater 
part  of  Ireland  in  eternal  hot  water.  Their  war- 
cries  of  "  Crom-a-Boo  "  and  "  Butler-a-Boo  "  filled  the 
very  air,  and  had  to  be  solemnly  prohibited  a  few  years 
later  by  special  Act  of  Parliament.  By  1494  the 
complaints  against  Kildare  had  grown  so  loud  and  so 
long  that  the  king  resolved  upon  a  new  experiment, 
that  of  sending  over  an  Englishman  to  fill  the  post, 
and  Sir  Edward  Poynings  was  pitched  upon  as  the 
most  suitable  for  the  purpose. 

He  arrived  accompanied  by  a  force  of  a  thousand 
men-at-arms,  and  five  or  six  English  lawyers,  who 
were  appointed  to  fill  the  places  of  chancellor^ 
treasurer,  and  other  offices  from  which  the  present 
occupiers,  most  of  whom  had  been  concerned  either 
in  the  Warbeck  or  Simnel  rising,  were  to  be  ejected. 

It  was  at  a  parliament  summoned  at  Drogheda^ 
whither  this  new  deputy  had  gond  to  quell  a  northern 
rising,  that  the  famous  statute  known  as  Poynings' 
Act    was    passed,  long   a    rock  of  offence,  and   even 


POYNINGS'   ACT — KILDARE   IN   ENGLAND.      I39 

still  a  prominent  feature  in  Irish  political  contro- 
versy. 

Many  of  the  statutes  passed  by  this  Parliament — 
such  as  the  one  just  mentioned  forbidding  war  cries, 
others  forbidding  the  levying  of  private  forces,  for- 
bidding the  "  country's  curse  "  Coyne  and  livery,  and 
other  habitual  exactions  were  undoubtedly  necessary 
and  called  for  by  the  circumstances  of  the  case. 
The  only  ones  now  remembered  however  are  the 
following.  First,  that  no  parliament  should  be  sum- 
moned by  the  deputy's  authority  without  the  king's 
special  license  for  that  purpose.  Secondly,  that  all 
English  statutes  should  henceforward  be  regarded 
as  binding  upon  Ireland  ;  and  thirdly,  that  all  Acts 
referring  to  Ireland  must  be  submitted  first  to  the 
king  and  Privy  Council,  and  that,  when  returned  by 
them,  the  Irish  Parliament  should  have  no  power  to 
modify  them  further.  This,  as  will  be  seen,  practically 
reduced  the  latter  to  a  mere  court  for  registering 
laws  already  passed  elsewhere,  passed  too  often 
without  the  smallest  regard  to  the  special  require- 
ments of  the.  country.  A  condition  of  subserviency 
from  which  it  only  escaped  again  for  a  short  time 
during  the  palmy  days  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

By  this  same  parliament  Kildare  was  attained — 
rather  late  in  the  day — on  the  ground  of  conspiracy, 
and  sent  prisoner  to  London.  He  lay  a  year  in 
prison,  and  was  then  brought  to  trial,  and  allowed  to 
plead  his  own  cause  in  the  king's  presence.  The 
audacity,  frank  humour,  and  ready  repartee  of  his 
great  Irish  subject  seems  to  have  made  a  favourable 
impression  upon  Henry,  who  must  himself  have  had 


140  THE   KILDARES  IN   THE   ASCENDANT. 

more  sense  of  humour  than  EngHsh  historians  give 
us  any  impression  of.  One  of  the  principal  charges 
against  the  earl  was  that  he  had  burned  the  church 
at  Cashel.  According  to  the  account  given  in  the 
Book  of  Howth  he  readily  admitted  the  charge,  but 
declared  positively  that  he  would  never  have  thought 
of  doing  so  had  he  not  been  solemnly  assured  that 
the  archbishop  was  at  the  time  inside  it.  The  auda- 
city of  this  defence  is  not  a  little  heightened  by 
the  fact  that  the  archbishop  in  question  was  at  the 
moment  sitting  in  court  and  listening  to  it. 

Advised  by  the  king  to  provide  himself  with  a  good 
counsel,  "  By  St.  Bride  " — his  favourite  oath — said  he, 
"  I  know  well  the  fellow  I  would  have,  yea,  and  the 
best  in  England,  too  !  "  Asked  who  that  might  be. 
"  Marry,  the  king  himself."  The  note  of  comedy 
struck  at  the  beginning  of  the  trial  lasted  to  the  end. 
The  earl's  ready  wit  seems  to  have  dumbfounded  his 
accusers,  who  were  not  unnaturally  indignant  at  so 
unlooked  for  a  result.  "  All  Ireland,"  they  swore, 
solemnly,  "  could  not  govern  the  Earl  of  Kildare." 
"  So  it  appears,"  said  Henry.  "  Then  let  the  Earl  of 
Kildare  govern  all  Ireland." 

Whether  the  account  given  by  Irish  historians  of 
this  famous  trial  is  to  be  accepted  literally  or  not,  the 
result,  at  any  rate,  was  conclusive.  The  king  seems  to 
have  felt,  that  Kildare  was  less  dangerous  as  sheep-dog 
— even  though  a  head-strong  one — than  as  wolf,  even 
a  wolf  in  a  cage.  He  released  him  and  restored  him 
to  his  command.  Prince  Henry,  according  to  custom, 
becoming  nominally  Lord-Lieutenant,  with  Kildare  as 
deputy  under  him.     The  earl's  wife  had  lately  died, 


RETURN  OF  KILDARE    TO   IRELAND.  I4I 

and  before  leaving  England  he  strengthened  himself 
against  troubles  to  come  by  marrying  Elizabeth  St. 
John,  the  king's  cousin,  and  having  left  his  son  Gerald 
behind  as  hostage  for  his  good  behaviour,  sailed 
merrily  home  to  Ireland. 

Perkin  Warbeck  meanwhile  had  made  another 
foray  upon  Munster,  where  he  was  supported  by 
Desmond,  and  repulsed  with  no  little  ignominy  by 
the  townsfolk  of  Waterford  ;  after  which  he  again 
departed  and  was  seen  no  more  upon  that  stage. 
Kildare — whose  own  attainder  was  not  reversed  until 
after  his  arrival  in  Ireland — presided  over  a  parlia- 
ment, one  of  whose  first  acts  was  to  attaint  Lord 
Barrymore  and  the  other  Munster  gentlemen  for  their 
share  in  this  rising.  He  also  visited  Cork  and  Kin- 
sale,  leaving  a  garrison  behind  him  ;  rebuilt  several 
towns  in  Leinster  which  had  been  ruined  in  a  succes- 
sion of  raids  ;  garrisoned  the  borders  of  the  Pale 
with  new  castles,  and  for  the  first  time  in  its 
history  brought  ordnance  into  Ireland,  which  he 
employed  in  the  siege  of  Belrath  Castle.  A  factor 
destined  to  work  a  revolution  upon  Irish  traditional 
modes  of  warfare,  and  upon  none  with  more  fatal 
effect  than  upon  the  house  of  Fitzgerald  itself. 

That  Kildare's  authority,  even  during  this  latter 
period  of  his  government  was  wholly  exercised  in 
the  cause  of  tranquility  it  would  be  certainly  rash  to 
assert.  At  the  same  time  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
any  better  choice  was  open  to  the  king — short  of 
some  very  drastic  policy  indeed.  That  he  used  his 
great  authority  to  overthrow  his  own  enemies  and  to 
aggrandize  his  own  house  goes  almost  without  saying 


142  THE   KILDARES   IN   THE   ASCENDANT. 

The  titular  sovereignty  of  the  king  could  hope  to  count 
for  little  beside  the  real  sovereignty  of  the  earl,  and 
the  house  of  Kildare  naturally  loomed  far  larger  and 
more  imposingly  in  Ireland  than  the  house  of  Tudor. 
Despotism  in  some  form  was  the  only  practical  and 
possible  government,  and  Earl  Gerald  was  all  but 
despotic  within  the  Pale,  and  even  outside  it  was  at 
any  rate  stronger  than  any  other  single  individual. 
The  Desmond  Geraldines  lived  remote,  the  Butlers, 
who  came  next  to  the  Geraldines  in  importance,  held 
Kilkenny,  Carlow,  and  Tipperary,  but  were  cut  off 
from  Dublin  by  the  wild  mountains  of  Wicklow,  and 
the  wilder  tribes  of  O'Tooles,  and  O'Brynes  who  held 
them.  They  were  only  able  to  approach  it  through 
Kildare,  and  Kildare  was  the  head-quarters  of  the 
Geraldines. 

One  of  Earl  Gerald's  last,  and,  upon  the  whole,  his 
most  remarkable  achievement  was  that  famous  expedi- 
tion which  ended  in  the  battle  of  Knocktow  already 
alluded  to  in  an  earlier  chapter,  in  which  a  large  num- 
ber of  the  lords  of  the  Pale,  aided  by  the  native  allies 
of  the  deputy,  took  part.  In  this  case  there  was 
hardly  a  pretence  that  the  expedition  was  undertaken 
in  the  king's  service.  It  was  a  family  quarrel  pure 
and  simple,  between  the  deputy  and  his  son-in-law 
McWilliam,  of  Clanricarde.  The  native  account 
tells  us  that  the  latter's  wife  "  was  not  so  used  as  the 
earl  (her  father)  could  be  pleased  with,"  whereupon 
"  he  swore  to  be  revenged  upon  this  Irishman  and  all 
his  partakers."  The  notion  of  a  Fitzgerald  stigma- 
tizing a  De  Burgh  as  an  Irishman  is  delightful,  and 
eminently  characteristic  of  the  sort  of  wild  confusion 


BATTLE   OF  KNOCKTOW.  I43 

prevailing  on  the  subject.  The  whole  story  indeed 
is  so  excellent,  and  is  told  by  the  narrator  with  so 
much  spirit,  that  it  were  pity  to  curtail  it,  and  as  it 
stands  it  would  be  too  long  for  these  pages.  The 
result  was  that  Clanricarde  and  his  Irish  allies  were 
defeated  with  frightful  slaughter,  between  seven  and 
eight  thousand  men,  according  to  the  victors,  having 
been  left  dead  upon  the  field !  Gahvay,  previously 
held  by  Clanricarde,  was  re-occupied,  and  the  deputy 
and  his  allies  returned  in  triumph  to  Dublin,  whence 
the  archbishop  was  despatched  in  hot  haste  to  explain 
matters  to  the  king. 

A  slight  incident  which  took  place  at  the  end  of 
this  battle  is  too  characteristic  to  omit.  "  We  have 
done  one  good  work,"  observed  Lord  Gorman- 
ston,  one  of  the  Lords  of  the  Pale,  confidentially  to 
the  Lord-deputy.  "  And  if  we  now  do  the  other  we 
shall  do  well."  Asked  by  the  latter  what  he  meant, 
he  replied,  "  We  have  for  the  most  part  killed  our 
enemies,  if  we  do  the  like  with  all  the  Irishmen  that 
we  have  with  us  it  were  a  good  deed."  ^  Happily  for 
his  good  fame  Kildare  seems  to  have  been  able  to 
resist  the  tempting  suggestion,  and  the  allies  parted 
on  this  occasion  to  all  appearances  on  friendly  terms. 

'  Book  of  Howth. 


XX. 

FALL  OF  THE  HOUSE  OF  KILDARE. 

The  battle  of  Knocktow  was  fought  five  years 
before  the  death  of  Henry  VII.  Of  those  five  years 
and  of  the  earlier  ones  of  the  new  reign  little 
of  any  vital  importance  remains  to  be  recorded 
in  Ireland.  With  the  rise  of  Wolsey  to  power  how- 
ever a  new  era  set  in.  The  great  cardinal  was  the 
sworn  enemy  of  the  Geraldines.  He  saw  in  them 
the  most  formidable  obstacle  to  the  royal  power  in 
that  country.  The  theory  that  the  Kildares  were 
the  only  people  who  could  carry  on  the  government 
had  by  this  time  become  firmly  established.  No 
one  in  Ireland  could  stand  against  the  earl,  and  when 
the  earl  was  out  of  Ireland  the  whole  island  was  in  an 
uproar.  The  confusion  too  between  Kildare  in  his 
proper  person,  and  Kildare  as  the  king's  Viceroy  was, 
it  must  be  owned,  a  perennial  one,  and  upon  more 
than  one  occasion  had  all  but  brought  the  govern- 
ment to  an  absolute  standstill. 

Geroit  Mor  had  died  in  15 13  of  a  wound  received 
in  a  campaign  with  the  O'Carrolls  close  to  his  own 
castle  of  Kilkea,  but  almost  as  a  matter  of  course  his  son 
Gerald  had  succeeded  him  as  Viceroy  and  carried  on 


PLAN  OF   THE   EARL    OF   SURREY.  I45 

the  government  in  much  the  same  fashion  ;  had  made 
raids  on  the  O'Moores  and  O'Reillys  and  others  of  the 
•'  king's  Irish  enemies,"  and  been  rewarded  with  grants 
upon  the  lands  which  he  had  captured  from  the  rebels. 
The  state  of  the  Pale  was  terrible.  "  Coyne  and 
livery,"  it  was  declared,  had  eaten  up  the  people. 
The  sea,  too,  swarmed  with  pirates,  who  descended 
all  but  unchecked  upon  the  coast  and  carried  off  men 
and  women  to  slavery.  Many  complaints  were  made 
of  the  deputy,  and  by  1520  these  had  grown  so 
loud  and  long  that  Henry  resolved  upon  a  change, 
and  like  his  predecessor  determined  to  send  an 
English  governor,  one  upon  whom  he  could  himself 
rely. 

The  choice  fell  upon  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  son  of  the 
conqueror  of  Flodden,  Surrey's  survey  of  the  field 
soon  convinced  him  to  his  own  satisfaction  that  no 
half  measures  was  likely  to  be  of  any  avail.  The 
plan  proposed  by  him  had  certainly  the  merit  of 
being  sufficiently  sweeping.  Ireland  was  to  be  entirely 
reconquered.  District  was  to  be  taken  after  district, 
and  fortresses  to  be  built  to  hold  them  according  as 
they  were  conquered.  The  occupation  was  thus  to 
be  pushed  steadily  on  until  the  whole  country  sub- 
mitted, after  which  it  was  to  be  largely  repopulated 
by  English  colonists.  The  idea  was  a  large  one,  and 
would  have  taken  a  large  permanent  army  to  carry 
out.  The  loss  too  of  life  would  have  been  appalling, 
though  not,  it  was  represented  to  the  king,  greater  than 
was  annually  squandered  in  an  interminable  succession 
of  petty  wars.  Probably  the  expense  was  the  real  hin- 
drance.    At  any  rate  Surrc}'s  plan  was  put  aside  for 


146  FALL   OF   THE   HOUSE   OF  KILDARE. 

the  time  being,  and  not  long  afterwards  at  his  own 
urgent  prayer  he  was  allowed  to  lay  down  his  uneasy 
honours  and  return  to  England. 

Meanwhile  Earl  Gerald  the  younger  had  been 
rapidly  gaining  favour  at  Court,  had  accompanied 
Henry  to  France,  and  like  his  father  before  him,  had 
wooed  and  won  an  English  bride.  Like  his  father, 
too,  he  possessed  that  winning  charm  which  had 
for  generations  characterized  his .  house.  Quick- 
witted and  genial,  with  the  bright  manner  and  cour- 
teous ease  of  high-bred  gentlemen,  such — even  on 
the  showing  of  those  who  had  no  love  for  them — was 
the  habitual  bearing  of  these  Leinster  Geraldines. 
The  end  was  that  Kildare  after  a  while  was  allowed 
to  return  to  Ireland,  and  upon  Surrey's  departure, 
and  after  a  brief  and  very  unsuccessful  tenure  of 
office  by  Sir  Pierce  Butler,  the  deputyship  was  re- 
stored to  him. 

Three  years  later  he  was  again  summoned,  and  this 
time,  on  Wolsey's  urgent  advice,  thrown  into  the 
Tower.  Heavy  accusations  had  been  made  against 
him,  the  most  formidable  of  which  was  that  he  had 
used  the  king's  ordnance  to  strengthen  his  own  castle 
of  Maynooth.  The  Ormonds  and  the  cardinal 
were  bent  upon  his  ruin.  The  earl,  however,  faced  his 
accusers  boldly  ;  met  even  the  great  cardinal  himself 
in  a  war  of  words,  and  proved  to  be  more  than  his 
equal.  Once  again  he  was  acquitted  and  restored  to 
Ireland,  and  after  a  while  the  deputyship  was 
restored  to  him,  John  Allen,  a  former  chaplain  of 
Wolsey's,  being  however  appointed  Archbishop  of 
Dublin,  and  Chancellor,  with  private  orders  to  keep  a 


DEATH  OF  KILDARE.  I47 

watch  upon  Kildare,  and  to  report  his  proceedings  to 
the  EngHsh  Council. 

Yet  a  third  time  in  1534  he  was  summoned,  and 
now  the  case  was  more  serious.  The  whole  situa- 
tion had  in  fact  in  the  meanwhile  utterly  changed, 
Henry  was  now  in  the  thick  of  his  great  struggle 
with  Rome.  With  excommunication  hanging  over 
his  head,  Ireland  had  suddenly  become  a  formid- 
able peril.  Fears  were  entertained  of  a  Spanish 
descent  upon  its  coast.  One  of  the  emperor's 
chaplains  was  known  to  be  intriguing  with  the  Earl 
of  Desmond.  Cromwell's  iron  hand  too  was  over 
the  realm  and  speedily  made  itself  felt  in  Ireland. 
Kildare  was  once  more  thrown  into  the  Tower,  from 
which  this  time  he  was  never  destined  to  emerge.  He 
was  ill  already  of  a  wound  received  the  previous  year, 
and  the  confinement  and  trouble  of  mind — which 
before  long  became  acute — brought  his  life  to  a  close. 

His  son  Thomas  —  generally  known  as  Silken 
Thomas  from  the  splendour  of  his  clothes — had  been 
rashly  appointed  vice-deputy  by  his  father  before  his 
departure.  In  the  month  of  August,  a  report  reached 
Ireland  that  the  earl  had  been  executed,  and  the 
whole  house  of  Geraldine  was  forthwith  thrown  into 
the  wildest  convulsions  of  fury  at  the  intelligence. 
Young  Lord  Thomas  —  he  was  only  at  the  time 
twenty-one — hot-tempered,  undisciplined,  and  brimful 
of  the  pride  of  his  race — at  once  flew  to  arms.  His 
first  act  was  to  renounce  his  allegiance  to  England. 
Galloping  up  to  the  Council  with  a  hundred  and 
fifty  Geraldines  at  his  heels,  he  seized  the  Sword  of 
State,  marched  into  the  council-room,  and  addressing 


148  FALL    OF   THE   HOUSE   OF  KILDARE. 

the  Council  in  his  capacity  of  Vice-deputy,  poured 
forth  a  speech  full  of  boyish  fanfaronade  and  bravado. 
"  Henceforth,"  said  he,  "I  am  none  of  Henry's  deputy! 
I  am  his  foe!  I  have  more  mind  to  meet  him  in 
the  field,  than  to  serve  him  in  office."  With  other 
words  to  the  like  effect  he  rendered  up  the  Sword,  and 
once  more  springing  upon  his  horse,  galloped  out  of 
Dublin. 

He  was  back  again  before  long,  this  time  with 
intent  to  seize  the  town.  There  was  little  or  no 
defence.  Ormond  was  away;  the  walls  were  decayed; 
ordnance  was  short — a  good  deal  of  it,  the  Geraldine 
enemies  said,  had  been  already  removed  to  May- 
nooth.  White,  the  commander,  threw  himself  into 
the  castle  ;  the  gates  were  opened  ;  Lord  Thomas 
cantered  in  and  took  possession  of  the  town,  the 
garrison  remaining  placidly  looking  on. 

Worse  was  to  come.  Allen,  the  archbishop,  and 
the  great  enemy  of  the  Fitzgeralds  made  an  attempt 
to  escape  to  England,  but  was  caught  and  savagely 
murdered  by  some  of  the  Geraldine  adherents  upon 
the  sea  coast  near  Clontarf  When  the  news  of 
these  proceedings — especially  of  the  last  named — 
reached  England,  the  sensation  naturally  was  immense. 
Henry  hastily  despatched  Sir  William  Skeffington  with 
a  considerable  force  to  restore  order,  but  his  coming 
was  long  delayed,  and  when  he  did  arrive  his  opera- 
tions were  feeble  in  the  extreme.  Ormond  had 
marched  rapidly  up  from  the  south,  and  almost 
singlehanded  defended  the  interests  of  government. 
Even  after  his  arrival  Skeffington,  who  was  old, 
cautious,  and   enfeebled   by  bad  health,  remained  for 


CAPTURE   OF  MAYNOOTH   BY   THE   EXGLISH.      I49 

months  shut  up  in  Dublin  doing  nothing,  the  followers 
of  Lord  Thomas  wasting  the  country  at  pleasure,  and 
burning  the  towns  of  Trim  and  Dunboyne,  not  many 
miles  from  its  walls. 

The  Earl  of  Kildare  had  meanwhile  died  in  prison, 
broken-hearted  at  the  news  of  this  ill-starred  rising,  in 
which  he  doubtless  foresaw  the  ruin  of  his  house.  It 
was  not  until  the  month  of  March,  eight  months  after 
his  arrival  in  Ireland,  that  Sir  William  ventured  to 
leave  Dublin,  and  advance  to  the  attack  of  Maynooth 
Castle,  the  great  Leinster  stronghold  and  Paladium  of 
the  Geraldines.  Young  Kildare,  as  he  now  was,  was 
away  in  the  south,  but  managed  to  throw  some 
additional  men  into  the  castle,  which  was  already 
strongly  fortified,  and  believed  in  Ireland  to  be 
impregnable.  The  siege  train  imported  by  the 
deputy  shortly  dispelled  that  illusion.  Whether,  as 
is  asserted,  treachery  from  within  aided  the  result  or 
not,  the  end  was  not  long  delayed.  After  a  few 
days  Skeffington's  cannons  made  a  formidable  breach 
in  the  walls.  The  English  soldiery  rushed  in.  The 
defenders  threw  down  their  arms  and  begged  mercy, 
and  a  long  row  of  them,  including  the  Dean  of 
Kildare  and  another  priest  who  happened  to  be  in 
the  castle  at  the  time  were  speedily  hanging  in  front 
of  its  walls.  "  The  Pardon  of  Maynooth  "  was  from 
that  day  forth  a  well-known  Irish  equivalent  for  the 
gallows  ! 

This  was  the  end  of  the  rebellion.  The  destruction 
of  Maynooth  Castle  seems  to  have  struck  a  cold  chill 
to  the  very  hearts  of  the  Geraldines.  For  a  while. 
Earl  Thomas  and  his  brother-in-law,  the  chief  of  the 


^50 


FALL    OF   THE   HOUSE   OF  KILDARE. 


O'Connors,  tried  vainly  to  sustain  the  spirits  of  their 
followers.  The  rising  seems  to  have  melted  away 
almost  of  its  own  accord,  and  within  a  {qw  months 
the  young  leader  himself  surrendered  to  Lord  Leonard 
Grey,  the  English  commander,  upon  the  understand- 
ing that  his  life  was  to  be  spared.  Lord  Leonard  was 
his  near  relative,  and  therefore  no  doubt  willing,  as 
far  as  was  compatible  with  safety  to  himself,  to  do  the 
best  he  could  for  his  kinsman.  Whether  a  promise  was 
formally  given,  or  whether  as  was  afterwards  asserted 
"comfortable  words  were  spoken  to  Thomas  to  allure 
him  to  yield  "  the  situation  was  considered  too  grave 
for  any  mere  fanciful  consideration  of  honour  to  stand 
in  the  way.  Lord  Thomas  was  not  executed  upon 
the  spot,  but  he  was  thrown  into  prison,  and  a  year 
later  with  five  of  his  uncles,  two  of  whom  at  least  had 
had  no  share  whatever  in  the  raising,  he  was  hanged 
at  Tyburn.  Of  all  the  great  house  of  the  Leinster 
Geraldines  only  a  boy  of  twelve  years  old  survived 
this  hecatomb. 


FIGURES  ON   KILCARN   FONT,   MEATH. 


XXI. 

THE  ACT  OF   SUPREMACY. 

In  spite  of  his  feeble  health  and  feebler  energies, 
Sir  William  Skefifington  was  continued  Lord-deputy 
until  his  death,  which  took  place  not  many  months  after 
the  fall  of  Maynooth — "A  good  man  of  war,  but  not. 
quick  enough  for  Ireland  " — seems  to  have  been  the 
verdict  of  his  contemporaries  upon  him.  He  was 
succeeded  by  Lord  Leonard  Grey,  against  whom 
•no  such  charge  could  be  made.  His  energy  seems  to 
have  been  immense.  He  loved,  we  are  told,  to  be 
"  ever  in  the  saddle."  Such  was  the  rapidity  of  his 
movements,  and  such  the  terror  they  inspired  that  for 
a  while  a  sort  of  awe-struck  tranquillity  prevailed.  He 
overran  Cork  ;  broke  down  the  castles  of  the  Barrys 
and  Munster  Geraldines;  destroyed  the  famous  bridge 
over  the  Shannon  across  which  the  O'Briens  of  Clare 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  descending  from  time  imme- 
morial upon  the  Pale,  and  after  these  various  achieve- 
ments returned  triumphantly  to  Dublin. 

His  Geraldine  connection  proved  however  his  ruin. 
He  was  accused  of  favouring  the  adherents  of  their 
fallen  house,  and  even  of  conniving  at  the  escape  of 
its  last  legitimate  heir ;  of  playing  "  Bo  Peep  "  with 


1^2  THE   ACT  OF  SUPREMACY. 

him,  as  Stanihurst,  the  historian  puts  it.  Ormond 
and  the  deputy  were  never  friends,  and  Ormond  had 
won' — not  undeservedly — great  weight  in  the  councils 
of  Henry.  "My  Lord-deputy,"  Lord  Butler,  Or- 
mond's  son  had  declared,  "  is  the  Earl  of  Kildare 
born  over  again."  Luttrell,  on  the  other  hand,  de- 
clared that  "  Ormond  hated  Grey  worse  than  he  had 
hated  Kildare."  All  agreed  that  Lord  Leonard  was 
difficult  to  work  with.  He  seems  to  have  been  a  well- 
intentioned  man,  a  hard  worker,  and  a  keen  soldier, 
but  neither  subtle  enough  nor  conciliatory  enough 
for  his  place.  He  was  accused  of  treasonable 
practices,  and  a  list  of  formidable  charges  made 
against  him.  At  his  own  request  he  was  summoned 
to  court  to  answer  these.  To  a  good  many  he 
pleaded  guilty — half  in  contempt  as  it  would  seem — 
and  threw  himself  upon  the  mercy  of  the  king.  No 
mercy  however  followed.  Like  many  another  "  well- 
meaning  English  official"  of  the  period,  his  life  ended 
upon  the  scaffold. 

A  more  astute  and  cautious  man.  Sir  Anthony  St 
Lerer,  next  took  the  helm  in  Ireland.  His  task  was 
chiefly  one  of  diplomacy,  and  he  carried  it  out  with 
much  address.  In  1537  a  parliament  had  been  sum- 
moned in  Dublin  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  the 
Act  of  Supremacy.  To  this  proposal  the  lay  members 
seem  to  have  been  perfectly  indifferent,  but,  as  was  to 
be  expected,  the  clergy  stood  firmer.  So  resolute 
were  they  in  their  opposition  that  the  parliament  had 
to  be  prorogued,  and  upon  its  re-assembling,  a  Bill  was 
hastily  forced  through  by  the  Privy  Council,  declaring 
that  the  proctors,  who  had  long  represented  the  clergy 


CONFISCATION  OF   THE  MONASTERIES.        I53 

in  the  Lower  House,  had  henceforward  no  place  in 
the  Legislature.  The  Act  of  Supremacy  was  then 
passed  :  thirteen  abbeys  were  immediately  suppressed, 
and  the  firstfruits  made  over  to  the  king  in  place 
of  the  Pope.  The  foundation  of  the  new  edifice  was 
felt  to  have  been  securely  laid. 

This  was  followed  five  years  later  by  another  Act,  by 
which  the  property  of  over  four  hundred  religious 
houses  was  confiscated.  That  the  arguments  which 
applied  forcibly  enough  in  many  cases  for  the  con- 
fiscations of  religious  houses  in  England  had  no 
application  in  Ireland,  was  a  circumstance  which  was 
not  allowed  to  count.  In  England,  the  monasteries 
were  rich  ;  in  Ireland,  they  were,  for  the  most  part, 
very  poor  :  in  England,  they  absorbed  the  revenues  of 
the  parishes  ;  in  Ireland,  the  monks  as  a  rule  served 
the  parishes  themselves  :  in  England,  popular  condem- 
nation had  to  a  great  degree  already  forestalled  the 
legal  enactment ;  in  Ireland,  nothing  of  the  sort  had 
ever  been  thought  of:  in  England,  the  monks  were 
as  a  rule  distinctly  behind  the  higher  orders  of  laity 
in  education  ;  in  Ireland,  they  were  practically  the 
only  educators.  These  however  were  details.  Uni- 
formity was  desirable.  The  monasteries  were  doomed, 
and  before  long  means  were  found  to  enlist  most  of 
the  Irish  landowners,  Celts  no  less  than  Normans,  in 
favour  of  the  despoliation. 

At  a  great  parliament  summoned  in  Dublin  in 
1540,  all  the  Irish  lords  of  English  descent,  and 
a  large  muster  of  native  chieftains  were  for  the 
first  time  in  history  assembled  together  under  one 
roof.     O'TooIes  and  O'Byrnes  from  their  wild  Wick- 


154  ^^^   ^^^   ^^  SUPREMACY. 

low  mountains  ;  the  McMurroughs  from  Carlow,  the 
O'Connor,  the  O'Dunn,  the  O'Moore  ;  the  terrible 
McGillapatrick  from  his  forests  of  Upper  Ossory — 
all  the  great  O's  and  Macs  in  fact  of  Ireland  were 
called  together  to  meet  the  Butlers,  the  Desmonds, 
the  Barrys,  the  Fitzmaurices — their  hereditary  enemies 
now  for  four  long  centuries.  One  house  alone  was  not 
represented,  and  that  the  greatest  of  them  all.  The 
sun  of  the  Kildares  had  set  for  a  while,  and  the  only 
surviving  member  of  it  was  a  boy,  hiding  in  holes 
and  corners,  and  trusting  for  the  bare  life  to  the  fealty 
of  his  clansmen. 

Nothing  that  could  reconcile  the  chiefs  to  the  new 
religious  departure  was  omitted  upon  this  occasion. 
Their  new-found  loyalty  was  to  be  handsomely  re- 
warded with  a  share  of  the  Church  spoil.  Nor  did 
they  show  the  smallest  reluctance,  it  must  be  said,  to 
meet  the  king's  good  dispositions  half  way.  The 
principal  Church  lands  in  Galway  were  made  over 
to  McWilliam,  the  head  of  the  Burkes  ;  O'Brien 
received  the  abbey  lands  in  Thomond  ;  other  chiefs 
received  similar  benefices  according  to  their  degree, 
while  a  plentiful  shower  of  less  substantial,  but  still 
appreciated  favours  followed.  The  turbulent  Mc- 
Gillapatrick of  Ossory  was  to  be  converted  into  the 
decorous-sounding  Lord  Upper  Ossory.  For  Con 
O'Neill  as  soon  as  he  chose  to  come  in,  the  Earldom 
of  Tyrone  was  waiting.  McWilliam  Burke  of  Galway 
was  to  become  Earl  of  Clanricarde  ;  O'Brien  of  Clare, 
Earl  of  Thomond  and  Baron  of  Inchiquin.  Parlia- 
mentary robes,  and  golden  chains  ;  a  house  in  Dublin 
for  each  chief  durinsr  the  sitting  of  Parliament — these 


DISTRIBUTION   OF   CHURCH   LANDS. 


155 


were  only  a  portion  of  the  good  things  offered  by  the 
deputy  on  the  part  of  his  master.  Could  man  or 
monarch  do  more  ?  In  a  general  interchange  of 
civilities  the  "  King's  Irish  enemies  "  combined  with 
their  hereditary  foes  to  proclaim  him  no  longer  Lord, 
but  King  of  Ireland — "  Defender  of  the  Faith,  and  of 
the  Church  of  England  and  Ireland  on  earth  the 
Supreme  Head." 


■^-~^''  kM^''  '^ 


FONT   IN    KILCARN   CHURCH,   CO.   MEATH. 


XXII. 

THE    NEW   DEPARTURE. 

So  far  so  good.  Despite  a  few  trifling  clouds  which 
overhung  the  horizon,  the  latter  years  of  Henry  VIII.'s 
life  and  the  short  reign  of  his  successor  may  claim 
to  count  among  the  comparatively  halcyon  periods  of 
Irish  history.  The  agreement  with  the  landowners 
worked  well,  and  no  serious  fears  of  any  purpose  to 
expel  them  from  their  lands  had  as  yet  been  awakened. 
Henry's  policy  was  upon  the  whole  steadily  concilia- 
tory. Tyrant  as  he  was,  he  could  be  just  when  his 
temper  was  not  roused,  and  he  kept  his  word  loyally 
in  this  case.  To  be  just  and  firm,  and  to  give  time 
for  those  hitherto  untried  varieties  of  government  to 
work,  was  at  once  the  most  merciful  and  most  politic 
course  that  could  be  pursued.  Unfortunately  for  the 
destinies  of  Ireland,  unfortunately  for  the  future  com- 
fort of  her  rulers,  there  was  too  little  patience  to 
persevere  in  that  direction.  The  Government  desired 
to  eat  their  loaf  before  there  was  fairly  time  for  the 
corn  to  sprout.  The  seed  of  conciliation  had  hardly 
begun  to  grow  before  it  was  plucked  hastily  up  by  the 
roots  again.  The  plantations  of  Mary's  reign,  and 
the  still  larger  operations  carried  on  in  that  of  her 


NEW  IRISH   PEERS.  157 

sister,  awakened  a  deep-seated  feeling  of  distrust,  a 
rooted  belief  in  the  law  as  a  mysterious  and  incom- 
prehensible instrument  invented  solely  for  the  per- 
petration of  injustice,  a  belief  which  is  certainly  not 
wholly  extinguished  even  in  our  own  day. 

For  the  present,  however,  "  sober  ways,  politic 
shifts,  and  amicable  persuasions "  were  the  rule. 
Chief  after  chief  accepted  the  indenture  which  made 
him  owner  in  fee  simple  under  the  king  of  his  tribal 
lands.  These  indentures,  it  is  true,  were  in  themselves 
unjust,  but  then  it  was  not  as  it  happened  a  form  of 
injustice  that  affected  them  unpleasantly.  Con  O'Neill, 
Murrough  O'Brien,  McWilliam  of  Clanricarde,  all 
visited  Greenwich  in  the  summer  of  1543,  and  all 
received  their  peerages  direct  from  the  king's  own 
hands.  The  first  named,  as  became  his  importance, 
was  received  with  special  honour,  and  received  the  title 
of  Earl  of  Tyrone,  with  the  second  title  of  Baron  of 
Dungannon  for  any  son  whom  he  liked  to  name.  The 
son  whom  he  did  name — apparently  in  a  fit  of  inadvert- 
ence— was  one  Matthew,  who  is  confidently  asserted  to 
have  not  been  his  son  at  all,  but  the  son  of  a  black- 
smith, and  who  in  any  case  was  not  legitimate.  An 
odd  choice,  destined,  as  will  be  seen,  to  lead  to  a 
good  deal  of  bloodshed  later  on. 

One  or  two  of  the  new  peers  were  even  per- 
suaded to  send  over  their  heirs  to  be  brought  up 
at  the  English  Court,  according  to  a  gracious  hint 
from  the  king.  Young  Barnabie  FitzPatrick,  heir  to 
the  new  barony  of  Upper  Ossory,  was  one  of  these, 
and  the  descendent  of  a  long  line  of  turbulent  Mc 
Gillapatricks,  grew  up  there  into  a  douce-mannered 


158  THE   NEW  DEPARTURE. 

English-seeming  youth,  the  especial  friend  and  chosen 
companion  of  the  mild  young  prince. 

While  civil  strife  was  thus  settling  down,  religious 
strife  unfortunately  was  only  beginning  to  awaken. 
The  question  of  supremacy  had  passed  over  as  we 
have  seen  in  perfect  tranquillity  ;  it  was  a  very  dif- 
ferent matter  when  it  came  to  a  question  of  doctrine. 
Unlike  England,  Ireland  had  never  been  touched  by 
religious  controversy.  The  native  Church  and  the 
Church  of  the  Pale  were  sharply  separated  from  one 
another  it  is  true,  but  it  was  by  blood,  language,  and 
mutual  jealousies,  not  by  creed,  doctrine,  or  discipline. 
As  regards  these  points  they  were  all  but  absolutely 
identical.  The  attempt  to  change  their  common  faith 
was  instantly  and  vehemently  resisted  by  both  alike- 
Could  a  Luther  or  a  John  Knox  have  arrived,  with  all 
the  fervour  of  their  popular  eloquence,  the  case  might 
possibly  have  been  different.  No  Knox  or  Luther 
however,  showed  the  slightest  symptom  of  appearing, 
indeed  hardly  an  attempt  was  made  to  supply  doctrines 
to  the  new  converts.  The  few  English  divines  that 
did  come  knew  no  Irish,  those  who  listened  to  them 
knew  no  English.  The  native  priests  were  silent  and 
suspicious.  A  general  pause  of  astonishment  and 
consternation  prevailed. 

The  order  for  the  destruction  of  relics  broke  this 
silence,  and  sent  a  passionate  thrill  of  opposition 
through  all  breasts,  lay  as  well  as  clerical.  When 
the  venerated  remains  of  the  golden  days  of  the 
Irish  Church  were  collected  together  and  publicly 
destroyed,  especially  when  the  staff  of  St.  Patrick, 
the  famous  Baculum  Cristatum,  part  of  which  was 


OUTBREAK  OF  RELIGIOUS   STRIFE.  159 

believed  to  have  actually  touched  the  hands  of  the 
Saviour,  was  burnt  in  Dublin  in  the  market-place, 
a  spasm  of  shocked  dismay  ran  through  the  whole 
island.  Men  w^ho  would  have  been  scandalized 
by  no  other  form  of  violence  were  horror-stricken 
at  this.  Differences  of  creed  were  so  little  under- 
stood that  a  widespread  belief  that  a  new  era  of 
paganism  was  about  to  be  inaugurated  sprang  up  all 
over  Ireland.  To  this  belief  the  friars,  who,  though 
driven  from  their  cloisters,  were  still  numerous,  lent 
their  support,  as  did  the  Jesuits,  who  now  for  the 
first  time  began  to  arrive  in  some  numbers.  Even 
the  acceptance  of  the  supremacy  began  to  be  rebelled 
against  now  that  it  was  clearly  seen  what  it  was  lead- 
ing to.  An  order  to  read  the  new  English  liturgy 
was  met  with  sullen  resistance — "  Now  shall  every 
illiterate  fellow  read  mass  !  "  cried  Archbishop  Dowdal 
of  Armagh,  in  hot  wrath  and  indignation.  Brown,  the 
Archbishop  of  Dublin,  was  an  ardent  reformer,  so 
also  was  the  Bishop  of  Meath,  but  to  the  mass  of  their 
brethren  they  simply  appeared  to  be  heretics.  A 
proposal  was  made  to  translate  the  Prayer-book  into 
Irish,  but  it  was  never  carried  into  effect,  indeed, 
even  in  the  next  century  when  Bishop  Bedell  pro- 
posed to  undertake  the  task  he  received  little  en- 
couragement. 

The  attempt  to  force  Protestantism  upon  the 
country  produced  one,  and  only  one,  important  result. 
It  broke  down  those  long-standing  barriers  which  had 
hitherto  separated  Irishmen  of  different  blood  and 
lineage,  and  united  them  like  one  man  against  the 
Crown.     When  the  common  faith   was  touched  the 


i6o 


The   new  DEPARTURE:. 


common  sense  of  brotherhood  was  kindled.  "  The 
Engh'sh  and  Irish,"  Archbishop  Brown  wrote  in  despair 
to  Cromwell,  "  both  oppose  your  lordship's  orders,  and 
begin  to  lay  aside  their  own  quarrels."  Such  a  result 
might  be  desirable  in  itself,  but  it  certainly  came  in  the 
form  least  likely  to  prove  propitious  for  the  futuos 
tranquillity  of  the  country.  Even  those  towns  where 
loyalty  had  hitherto  stood  above  suspicion  received 
the  order  to  dismantle  their  churches  and  destroy 
all  "  pictures  and  Popish  fancies  "  with  sullen 
dislike  and  hostility.  Galway,  Kilkenny,  Waterford, 
each  and  all  protested  openly.  The  Irish  problem — 
not  so  very  easy  of  solution  before — had  suddenly 
received  a  new  element  of  confusion.  One  that  was 
destined  to  prove  a  greater  difficulty  than  all  the  rest 
put  together. 


INITIAL  LETTER    FROM   THE   BOOK   OF   KELLS. 


XXIII. 


THE   FIRST   PLANTATIONS. 


With  Mary's  accession  the  religious  struggle  was 
for  a  while  postponed.  Some  feeble  attempts  were 
even  made  to  recover  the  Church  property,  but  too 
many  people's  interests  were  concerned  for  much  to 
be  done  in  that  direction.  Dowdal,  Archbishop  of 
Armagh,  who  had  been  deprived,  was  restored  to  his 
primacy.  Archbishop  Brown  and  the  other  confor- 
ming bishops  were  deprived.  So  also  were  all  married 
clergy,  of  whom  there  seem  to  have  been  but  few  ; 
otherwise  there  was  no  great  difference.  As  far  as 
the  right  of  exercising  her  supremacy  was  concerned, 
Mary  relished  Papal  interference  nearly  as  little  as 
did  her  father. 

Although  the  religious  struggle  was  thus  for  a  time 
postponed,  the  other  vital  Irish  point — the  possession 
of  the  land — now  began  to  be  pressed  with  new 
vigour.  Fercal,  Leix,  and  Offaly,  belonging  to  the 
fierce  tribes  of  the  O'Moores,  O'Dempseys,  O'Connors, 
and  O'Carrols,  lay  upon  the  Kildare  frontier  of  the 
Pale,  and  had  long  been  a  standing  menace  to  their 
more  peaceful  neighbours.  It  was  now  determined 
that  this  tract   should   be   added  to  the  still   limited 


l62  THE   FIRST  PLANTATIONS. 

area  of  shire  land.  The  chiefs,  it  is  true,  had  been 
indentured  by  Henry,  but  since  then  there  had  been 
outbreaks  of  the  usual  sort,  and  it  was  considered 
by  the  Government  that  nowhere  could  the  longed-for 
experiment  of  a  plantation  be  tried  with  greater 
advantage. 

There  was  little  or  no  resistance.  The  chiefs,  taken 
by  surprise,  submitted.  The  English  force  sent 
against  them,  under  the  command  of  Sir  Edward 
Bellingham,  was  irresistible.  O'Moore  and  O'Connor 
were  seized  and  sent  prisoners  to  England.  Dangen, 
which  had  so  often  resisted  the  soldiers  of  the  Pale 
was  taken.  The  tribesmen  whose  fathers  had  fed 
their  cattle  from  time  immemorial  upon  the  un- 
fenced  pastures  of  the  plains  were  driven  off,  and 
took  refuge  in  the  forests,  which  still  covered  most 
of  the  centre  of  Ireland.  The  more  profitable  land 
was  then  leased  by  the  Crown  to  English  colonists 
— Cosbies,  Barringtons,  Pigotts,  Bowens,  and  others. 
Leix  and  a  portion  of  Offaly  were  called  Queen's 
County,  in  compliment  to  the  queen,  the  remainder 
King's  County,  in  compliment  to  Philip.  Dangen  at 
the  same  time  becoming  Phillipstown,  and  Campa 
Maryborough.  The  experiment  was  regarded  as 
eminently  successful,  and  congratulations  passed  be- 
tween the  deputy  and  the  English  Council,  but 
it  awakened  a  deep-seated  sense  of  insecurity  and 
ill-usage,  which  argued  poorly  for  the  tranquillity  of 
the  future. 

Of  the  rest  of  Mary's  reign  little  needs  to  be  here 
recorded.  That  indelible  brand  of  blood  which  it  has 
left  on   English  history  was  all  but  unfelt  in  Ireland. 


DEATH  OF  MARY.  163 

There  had  been  few  Protestant  converts,  and  those 
few  were  not  apparently  emulous  of  martyrdom. 
No  Smithfield  fires  were  lighted  in  Dublin,  indeed 
it  is  a  curious  fact  that  in  the  whole  course  of  Irish 
history — so  prodigal  of  other  horrors — no  single  exe- 
cution for  heresy  is,  it  is  said,  recorded.  A  story  is 
found  in  the  Ware  Papers,  and  supported  by  the 
authority  of  Archbishop  Ussher,  which,  if  true,  shows 
that  this  reproach  to  Irish  Protestantism — if  indeed  it 
is  a  reproach — was  once  nearly  avoided.  The  story 
runs  that  one  Cole,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  was  despatched 
by  Mary  with  a  special  commission  to  "  lash  the 
heretics  of  Ireland."  That  Cole  slept  on  his  way 
at  an  inn  in  Chester,  the  landlady  of  which  happened 
to  have  a  brother,  a  Protestant  then  living  in  Dublin. 
This  woman,  hearing  him  boast  of  his  commission, 
watched  her  opportunity,  and  stole  the  commission 
out  of  his  cloak-bag,  substituting  for  it  a  pack  of 
cards.  Cole  unsuspiciously  pursued  his  way,  and 
presenting  himself  authoritatively  before  the  deputy, 
declared  his  business  and  opened  his  bag.  There,  in 
place  of  the  commission  against  the  heretics,  lay  the 
pack  of  cards  with  the  knave  of  clubs  uppermost ! 

The  story  goes  on  to  say  that  the  dean  raged  in 
discomfited  fury,  but  that  the  deputy,  though  himself 
a  Roman  Catholic,  took  the  matter  easily.  "  Let  us 
have  another  commission,"  he  said,  "  and  meanwhile 
we  will  shuffle  the  cards."  The  cards  were  effectually 
shuffled,  for  before  any  further  steps  could  be  taken 
Mary  had  died. 


XXIV. 

WARS   AGAINST   SHANE   O'NEILL. 

Upon  the  17th  of  November,  1558,  Mary  died,  and 
upon  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  EHzabeth  was 
proclaimed  queen.  A  new  reign  is  always  accounted 
a  new  starting-point,  and  in  this  case  the  traditional 
method  of  dividing  history  is  certainly  no  misleader. 
The  old  queen  had  been  narrow,  dull-witted,  bigoted  ; 
an  unhappy  woman,  a  miserable  wife,  plagued  with 
sickness,  plagued,  above  all,  with  a  conscience  whose 
mission  seems  to  have  been  to  distort  everything 
that  came  under  its  cognizance.  A  woman  even 
whose  good  qualities — and  she  had  several — only 
seemed  to  push  her  further  and  further  down  the 
path  of  disaster. 

The  new  queen  was  twenty-six  years  old.  Old 
enough,  therefore,  to  have  realized  what  life  meant, 
young  enough  to  have  almost  illimitable  possibilities 
still  unrevealed  to  her.  No  pampered  royal  heiress, 
either,  for  whom  the  world  of  hard  facts  had  no 
reality,  and  the  silken  shams  of  a  Court  constituted 
the  only  standpoint,  but  one  who  had  already  with 
steady  eyes  looked  danger  and  disaster  in  the  face 
and  knew  them  for  what  they  were.     With  a  realm 


TROUBLES   IN   THE    NORTH.  165 

under  her  hand  strong  already,  and  destined  before 
her  death  to  grow  stronger  still  ;  with  a  spirit  too, 
strong  enough  and  large  enough  for  her  realm  ; 
stronger  perhaps  in  spite  of  her  many  littlenesses 
than  that  of  any  of  the  men  she  ruled  over. 

And  Ireland  ?  How  was  it  affected  by  this  change 
of  rulers  ?  At  first  fairly  well.  The  early  months  of 
the  new  reign  were  marked  by  a  policy  of  conciliation. 
Protestantism  was  of  course,  re-established,  but  there 
was  no  eagerness  to  press  the  Act  of  Conformity  with 
any  severity,  and  Mass  was  still  said  nearly  every- 
where except  in  the  Pale. 

As  usual,  troubles  began  in  the  North.  Henry  VHL, 
it  will  be  remembered,  had  granted  the  hereditary 
lands  of  Tyrone  to  Con  O'Neill,  with  remainder  to 
Matthew,  the  new  Baron  of  Dungannon,  whereas 
lands  in  Ulster,  as  elsewhere  in  Ireland,  had  always 
hitherto,  by  the  law  of  Tanistry,  been  vested  in  the 
tribe,  who  claimed  the  right  to  select  whichever  of 
their  late  chiefs'  sons  they  themselves  thought  fit. 
This  right  they  now  proceeded  to  exercise.  Matthew, 
if  he  was  Con's  son  at  all,  which  was  doubtful, 
was  unquestionably  illegitimate,  and,  therefore,  by 
English  as  well  as  Irish  law,  wrongfully  put  in  the 
place.  On  the  other  hand,  a  younger  son  Shane — 
called  affectionately  "  Shane  the  Proud  "  by  his  clans- 
men— was  unquestionably  legitimate,  and  what  was 
of  much  more  importance,  was  already  the  idol  of 
every  fighting  O'Neill  from  Lough  Foyle  to  the 
banks  of  the  Blackwater. 

Shane  is  one  of  those  Irish  heroes — rather  perhaps 
Ulster  heroes,  for  his  aspirations  were  hard!}'  national 


l66  WARS  AGAINST  SHANE   O'NEILL. 

— whom  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  mete  out  justice  to 
with  a  perfectly  even  hand.  He  was  unquestionably 
three-fourths  of  a  savage — that  fact  we  must  begin 
in  honesty  by  admitting — at  the  same  time,  he  was  a 
very  brilliant,  and,  even  in  many  respects  attractive, 
savage.  His  letters,  though  suffering  like  those  of 
some  other  distinguished  authors  from  being  trans- 
lated, are  full  of  touches  of  fiery  eloquence,  mixed 
with  bombast  and  the  wildest  and  most  monstrously 
inflated  self-pretension.  His  habits  certainly  were  not 
commendable.  He  habitually  drank,  and  it  is  also 
said  ate  a  great  deal  more  than  was  good  for  him. 
He  ill-used  his  unlucky  prisoners.  He  divorced  one 
wife  to  marry  another,  and  was  eager  to  have  a  third 
in  the  lifetime  of  the  second,  making  proposals  at  the 
same  time  to  the  deputy  for  the  hand  of  his  sister,  and 
again  and  again  petitioning  the  queen  to  provide  him 
with  some  "  English  gentlewoman  of  noble  blood,  meet 
for  my  vocation,  so  that  by  her  good  civility  and  bring- 
ing up  the  country  would  become  civil."  In  spite 
however  of  these  and  a  few  other  lapses  from  the 
received  modern  code  of  morals  and  decorum,  Shane 
the  Proud  is  an  attractive  figure  in  his  way,  and  we 
follow  his  fortunes  with  an  interest  which  more 
estimable  heroes  fail  sometimes  to  awaken. 

The  Baron  of  Dungannon  was  in  the  meantime 
dead,  having  been  slain  in  a  scuffle  with  his  half- 
brother's  followers — some  said  by  his  half-brother's 
own  hand — previous  to  his  father's  death.  His  son, 
however,  who  was  still  a  boy,  was  safe  in  England, 
and  now  appealed  through  his  relations  to  the 
Government,  and    Sir  Henry    Sidney,  who  in  Lord 


DEFEAT   OF  SUSSEX  BY   SHANE.  167 

Sussex's  abserice  was  in  command,  marched  from 
Dublin  to  support  the  English  candidate.  At  a 
meeting  which  took  place  at  Dundalk  Shane  seems 
however  to  have  convinced  Sidney  to  some  degree 
of  the  justice  of  his  claim,  and  hostilities  were  delayed 
until  the  matter  could  be  reported  to  the  queen. 

Upon  Sussex's  return  from  England  they  broke 
out  again.  Shane,  however,  had  by  this  time  con- 
siderably strengthened  his  position.  Not  only  had  he 
firmly  established  himself  in  the  allegiance  of  his  own 
tribe,  but  had  found  allies  and  assistants  outside  it. 
There  had  of  late  been  a  steady  migration  of  Scotch 
islanders  into  the  North  of  Ireland,  "  Redshanks  "  as 
they  were  familarly  called,  and  a  body  of  these,  got 
together  by  Shane  and  kept  as  a  body-guard,  enabled 
him  to  act  with  unusual  rapidity  and  decision.  Upon 
Sussex  attempting  to  detach  two  chieftains,  O'Reilly 
of  Brefny  and  O'Donnell  of  Tyrconnel,  who  owed 
him  allegiance,  Shane  flew  into  Brefny  and  Tyr- 
connel, completely  overawed  the  two  waverers,  and 
carried  off  Calvagh  O'Donnell  with  his  wife,  who 
was  a  sister-in-law  of  the  Earl  of  Argyle.  The 
following  summer  he  encountered  Sussex  himself  and 
defeated  him,  sending  his  army  flying  terror-stricken 
back  upon  Armagh.  This  feat  established  him  as 
the  hero  of  the  North.  No  army  which  Sussex  could 
again  gather  together  could  be  induced  to  risk  the 
fate  of  its  predecessor.  The  deputy  was  a  poor 
soldier,  feeble  and  vacillating  in  the  field.  He 
was  no  match  for  his  fiery  assailant ;  and  after  an 
attempt  to  get  over  the  difficulty  by  suborning  one 
Neil    Grey    to    make    away  with   the    too    successful 


1 68  WARS  AGAINST  SHANE   o'nETLL. 

Shane,  he  was  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  coming  to 
terms.  An  agreement  was  entered  into  with  the 
assistance  of  the  Earl  of  Kildare,  by  which  Shane 
agreed  to  present  himself  at  the  English  Court,  and 
there,  if  he  could,  to  make  good  his  claims  in  person 
before  the  queen. 

Few  scenes  are  more  picturesque,  or  stand  out  more 
vividly  before  our  imagination  than  this  visit  of  the 
turbulent  Ulster  chieftain  to  the  capital  of  his  un- 
known sovereign.  As  he  came  striding  down  the 
London  streets  on  his  way  to  the  Palace,  the  citizens 
ran  to  their  doors  to  stare  at  the  redoubtable  Irish 
rebel  with  his  train  of  galloglasses  at  his  heels — huge 
bareheaded  fellows  clad  in  saffron  shirts,  their  huge 
naked  axes  swung  over  their  shoulders,  their  long  hair 
streaming  behind  them,  their  great  hairy  mantles 
dangling  nearly  to  their  heels.  So  attended,  and 
in  such  order,  Shane  presented  himself  before  the 
queen,  amid  a  buzz,  as  may  be  imagined,  of  courtly 
astonishment.  Elizabeth  seems  to  have  been  equal 
to  the  situation.  She  motioned  Shane,  who  had 
prostrated  himself,  clansman  fashion  upon  the  floor, 
to  rise,  "  check'd  with  a  glance  the  circle's  smile," 
eyeing  as  she  did  so,  not  without  characteristic 
appreciation,  the  redoubtable  thews  and  sinews  of 
this  the  most  formidable  of  her  vassals. 

Her  appreciation,  equally  characteristically,  did  not 
hinder  her  from  taking  advantage  of  a  flaw  in  his 
safe-conduct  to  keep  Shane  fuming  at  her  Court  until 
he  had  agreed  to  her  own  terms.  When  at  last  he 
was  allowed  to  return  home  it  was  with  a  sort  of 
compromise  of  his  claim.     He  was  not  to  call  himself 


THE   RULE   OF  SHANE.  1 69 

Earl  of  Tyrone — a  distinction  to  which,  in  truth,  he 
seems  to  have  attached  Httle  importance — but  he 
was  allowed  to  be  still  the  O'Neill,  with  the  addi- 
tional title  of  "  Captain  of  Tyrone."  To  which  the 
wits  of  the  Court  added — 

"Shane  O'Neill,  Lord  of  the  North  of  Ireland  ; 

Cousin  of  St.  Patrick.     Friend  of  the  Queen  of  England ; 
Enemy  of  all  the  world  besides. " 

Shane  and  his  galloglasses  went  home,  and  for 
some  two  years  he  and  the  Irish  Gov^ernment  left  one 
another  comparatively  alone.  He  was  supreme  now 
in  the  North,  and  ruled  his  own  subjects  at  his  own 
pleasure  and  according  to  his  own  rude  fashion. 
Sussex  made  another  attempt  not  long  after  to  poison 
him  in  a  gift  of  wine,  which  all  but  killed  him  and  his 
entire  household,  which  still  included  the  unhappy 
"  Countess "  and  her  yet  more  unhappy  husband 
Calvagh  O'Donnell,  whom  Shane  kept  securely  ironed 
in  a  cell  at  the  bottom  of  his  castle.  The  incident 
did  not  add  to  his  confidence  in  the  Queen's  Govern- 
ment, or  incline  him  to  trust  himself  again  in  their 
hands,  which,  all  things  considered,  was  hardly  sur- 
prising. 

That  in  his  own  wild  way  Shane  kept  the  North  in 
order  even  his  enemies  admitted.  While  the  East 
and  West  of  Ireland  were  distracted  with  feuds,  and 
in  the  South  Ormond  and  Desmond  were  wasting 
one  another's  country  with  unprecedented  ferocity. 
Leister  was  comparatively  peaceable  and  prosperous. 
Chiefs  who  made  themselves  objectionable  to  Shane 
felt  the  weight  of  his  arm,  but  that  perhaps  had  not  a 


[70  WARS   AGAINST   SHANE   O'NEILL. 

little  to  say  to  this  tranquillity.  Mr.  Froude — no  ex- 
aggerated admirer  of  Irish  heroes— tells  us  apropos  of 
this  time,  "In  O'Neill's  county  alone  in  Ireland  were 
peasants  prosperous,  or  life  and  property  safe,"  though 
he  certainly  adds  that  their  prosperity  flourished 
largely  upon  the  spoils  collected  by  them  from  the 
rest  of  the  country. 

That  Shane  himself  believed  that  he  had  so  far  kept 
his  word  with  Elizabeth  "is  pretty  evident,  for  in  a 
letter  to  her  written  in  his  usual  inflated  style  about 
the  notorious  Sir  Thomas  Stukeley,  he  entreats  that 
she  will  pardon  the  latter  "  for  his  sake  and  in  the 
name  of  the  services  which  he  had  himself  rendered  to 
England."  Whether  Elizabeth,  or  still  more  Sidney, 
were  equally  convinced  of  those  services  is  an  open 
question. 

Shane's  career  however  was  rapidly  running  to  a 
close.  In  1565  he  made  a  sudden  and  unexpected 
descent  upon  the  Scots  in  Antrim,  where,  after  a  fierce 
combat,  an  immense  number  of  the  latter  were 
slaughtered,  a  feat  for  which  he  again  had  the  audacity 
to  write  to  Elizabeth  and  assure  her  that  it  was  all 
done  in  her  service.  Afterwards  he  made  a  descent 
on  Connaught,  driving  back  with  him  into  his  own 
country  over  4000  head  of  cattle  which  he  had 
captured.  His  game,  however,  was  nearly  at  an 
end.  Sir  Henry  Sidney  was  now  back  to  Ireland, 
this  time  with  the  express  purpose  of  crushing  the 
rebel,  and  had  marched  into  Ulster  with  a  con- 
siderable force  for  that  purpose.  Shane,  nevertheless, 
still  showed  a  determined  front.  Struck  up  an 
alliance    with    Argyle,    and    wrote    to    France    for 


ENERGY  OF  SIDNEY.  I7I 

instant  aid  to  hold  Ulster  against  Elizabeth,  nay,  in 
spite  of  his  recent  achievement,  he  seems  to  have  even 
hoped  to  win  the  Scotch  settlers  over  to  his  side. 
Sidney  however  was  this  time  in  earnest,  and  was 
a  man  of  very  different  calibre  from  Sussex,  in  whom 
Shane  had  previously  found  so  easy  an  antagonist- 
He  marched  right  across  Ulster,  and  entered  Tyrcon- 
nel  ;  reinstated  the  O'Donnells  who  had  been 
driven  thence  by  Shane  ;  continued  his  march  to 
Sligo,  and  from  there  to  Connaught,  leaving  Colonel 
Randolph  and  the  O'Donnells  to  hold  the  North  and 
finish  the  work  which  he  had  begun. 

Randolph's  camp  was  pitched  at  Dorry — not  then 
the  protegee  of  London,  nor  yet  famed  in  story,  but  a 
mere  insignificant  hamlet,  consisting  of  an  old  castle 
and  a  disused  graveyard.  It  was  this  latter  site  that 
the  unlucky  English  commander  selected  for  his 
camp,  with,  as  might  be  expected,  the  most  disas- 
trous results.  Fever  broke  out,  the  water  proved  to 
be  poisonous,  and  in  a  short  time  half  the  force  were 
dead  or  dying,  Randolph  himself  being  amongst 
the  former.  An  explosion  which  occurred  in  a 
magazine  finished  the  disaster,  and  the  scared  sur- 
vivors escaped  in  dismay  to  Carrickfergus.  Local 
superstition  long  told  tales  of  the  fiery  portents  and 
miracles  by  which  the  heretic  soldiery  were  driven 
from  the  sacred  precincts  which  their  presence  had 
poluted. 

With  that  odd  strain  of  greatness  which  ran  through 
her,  Elizabeth  seems  to  have  accepted  this  disaster 
well,  and  wrote  "  comfortable  words  "  to  Sidney  upon 
the  subject     For  the  time  being,  however,  the  attack 


172  WARS  AGAINST  SHANE   o'NEILL. 

upon  Shane  devolved  of  necessity  wholly  upon  his 
native  foes. 

Aided  by  good  fortune  they  proved  for  once 
more  than  a  match  for  him.  Encouraged  by  the 
disaster  of  the  Derry  garrison,  Shane  made  a  hasty 
advance  into  Tyrconnel,  and  crossed  with  a  consider- 
able force  over  the  ford  of  Lough  Swilly,  near  Letter- 
kenny.  He  found  the  O'Donnells,  though  fewer  in 
number  than  his  own  forces,  established  in  a  strong 
position  upon  the  other  side.  From  this  position  he 
tried  to  drive  them  by  force,  but  the  O'Donnells  were 
prepared,  and  Shane's  troops  coming  on  in  disorder 
were  beaten  back  upon  the  river.  The  tide  had  in 
the  meantime  risen,  and  there  was  therefore  no  escape. 
Penned  between  the  flood  and  the  O'Donnells,  over 
3000  of  his  men  perished,  many  by  drowning,  but 
the  greater  number  being  hacked  to  death  upon  the 
strand.  Shane  himself  narrowly  escaped  with  his 
life  by  another  ford. 

The  Hero  of  the  North  was  now  a  broken  man. 
Such  a  disaster  was  not  to  be  retrieved.  The  English 
troops  were  again  coming  rapidly  up.  The  victorious 
O'Donnells  held  all  the  country  behind  him.  A 
French  descent,  even  if  it  had  come,  would  hardly 
have  saved  him  now.  In  this  extremity  a  desperate 
plan  occurred  to  him.  Followed  by  a  few  horsemen, 
and  accompanied  by  the  unhappy  "Countess"  who  had 
so  long  shared  his  curious  fortunes,  he  rode  off  to  the 
camp  of  the  Scotch  settlers  in  Antrim,  there  to  throw 
himself  on  their  mercy  and  implore  their  support. 
It  was  an  insane  move.  He  was  received  with 
seeming    courtesy,    and    a    banquet    spread    in    his 


MURDER   OF   SHANE.  1 73 

honoun  Lowering  looks  however  were  bent  upon  him 
from  every  side  of  the  table.  Captain  Pierce,  an 
EngHsh  officer,  had  been  busy  the  day  before  stirring 
up  the  smouldering  embers  of  anger.  Suddenly  a 
taunt  was  flung  out  by  one  of  the  guests  at  the 
discomfited  hero.  Shane — forgetting  perhaps  where 
he  was — sprang  up  to  revenge  it.  A  dozen  swords 
and  skeans  blazed  out  upon  him,  and  he  fell, 
pierced  by  three  or  four  of  his  entertainers  at 
once.  His  body  was  then  tossed  into  an  old 
ruined  chapel  hard  by,  where  the  next  day  his  head 
was  hacked  off  by  Captain  Pierce,  and  carried  to 
Sidney,  who  sent  it  to  be  spiked  upon  Dublin  Castle. 
It  was  but  too  characteristic  an  end  of  an  eminently 
characteristic  career. 


ST.    I'ATRlCK's    BELL. 


XXV. 

BETWEEN   TWO   STORMS. 

By  1566  Sir  Henry  Sidney  became  Lord-deputy, 
not  now  in  the  room  of  another,  but  fully  appointed. 
With  the  possible  exception  of  Sir  John  Perrot,  he 
was  certainly  the  ablest  of  all  the  viceroys  to  whom 
Elizabeth  committed  power  in  Ireland.  Unlike 
others  he  had  the  advantage,  too,  of  having  served 
first  in  the  country  in  subordinate  capacities,  and  so 
earning  his  experience.  He  even  seems  to  have  been 
fairly  popular,  which,  considering  the  nature  of  some 
of  his  proceedings,  throws  a  somewhat  sinister  light, 
it  must  be  owned,  upon  those  of  his  successors  and 
predecessors. 

After  the  death  and  defeat  of  Shane  the  Proud  a 
lull  took  place,  and  the  new  deputy  took  the  oppor- 
tunity of  making  a  progress  through  the  south  and 
west  of  the  island,  which  he  reports  to  be  all  terribly 
wasted  by  war.  Many  districts,  he  says,  "  had  but  one- 
twentieth  part  of  their  former  population."  Galway, 
worn  out  by  incessant  attacks,  could  scarcely  defend 
her  walls.  Athenry  had  but  four  respectable  house- 
holders left,  who  "sadly  presenting  the  rusty  keys 
of  their  once  famous  town,  confessed  themselves  unable 
to  defend  it." 


SIR   HENRY  SIDNEY,    LORD-DEPUTY   FROM    1 565   TO    1 587. 
(From  an  engravht^  by  Harding.) 


176  BETWEEN   TWO   STORMS. 

Sidney  was  one  of  the  first  to  relinquish  what  had 
hitherto  been  the  favourite  and  traditional  policy  of 
all  English  governors,  that,  namely,  of  playing  one 
great  lord  or  chieftain  against  another,  and  to 
attempt  the  larger  task  of  putting  down  and  punish- 
ing all  signs  of  insubordination  especially  in  the  great. 
In  this  respect  he  was  the  political  parent  of  Strafford, 
who  acted  the  same  part  sixty  years  later.  He  had 
not — any  more  than  his  great  successor — to  reproach 
himself  either  with  feebleness  in  the  execution  of 
his  policy.  The  number  of  military  executions  that 
mark  his  progress  seem  to  have  startled  his  own 
coadjutors,  and  even  to  have  evoked  some  slight 
remonstrance  from  Elizabeth  herself.  "  Down  they 
go  at  every  corner !  "  the  Lord-deputy  writes  at  this 
time  triumphantly  in  an  account  of  his  own  proceed- 
ings, "  and  down,  God  willing,  they  shall  go." 

A  plan  for  appointing  presidents  of  provinces  had 
been  a  favourite  with  the  late  deputy,  Sussex,  and 
was  now  revived.  Sir  Edward  Fitton,  one  of  the 
judges  of  the  Queen's  Bench,  was  appointed  to  the 
province  of  Connaught — a  miserably  poor  appoint- 
ment as  it  turned  out  ;  Sir  John  Perrot  a  little  later 
to  Munster ;  Leinster  for  the  present  the  deputy 
reserved  for  himself.  This  done  he  returned,  first 
pausing  to  arrest  the  Earl  of  Desmond  and  carrying 
him  and  his  brother  captive  to  Dublin  and  eventually 
to  London,  where  according  to  the  queen's  orders  he 
was  to  be  brought  in  order  that  she  might  adjudicate 
herself  in  the  quarrel  between  him  and  Ormond. 

The  two  earls — they  were  stepson  and  stepfather  by 
the  way — had  for  years  been  at   fierce  feud,  a  feud 


MILITARY   COLONIES.  1 77 

which  had  desolated  the  greater  part  of  the  South  of 
Ireland.  It  was  a  question  of  titles  and  ownership, 
and  therefore  exclusively  one  for  the  lawyers.  The 
queen,  however,  was  resolved  that  it  should  be  de- 
cided in  Ormond's  favour.  Ormond  was  "  sib  to 
the  Boleyns  ; "  Ormond  had  been  the  playmate  of 
"that  sainted  young  Solomon,  King  Edward,"  and 
Ormond  therefore,  it  was  quite  clear,  must  know 
whether  the  lands  were  his  own  or  not. 

Against  the  present  Desmond  nothing  worse  was 
charged  than  that  he  had  enforced  what  he  considered 
his  palatinate  rights  in  the  old,  high-handed,  time- 
immemorial  fashion.  His  father,  however,  had  been 
in  league  with  Spain,  and  he  himself  was  held  to  be 
contumacious,  and  had  never  been  on  good  terms  with 
any  of  the  deputies. 

On  this  occasion  he  had,  however,  surrendered 
himself  voluntarily  to  Sidney.  Nevertheless,  upon 
his  arrival  he  was  kept  a  close  prisoner,  and  upon 
attempting,  sometime  afterwards, to  escape,  was  seized, 
and  only  received  his  life  on  condition  of  surren- 
dering the  whole  of  his  ancestral  estates  to  the 
Crown,  a  surrender  which  happened  to  fit  in  very  con- 
veniently with  a  plan  upon  which  the  attention  of  the 
English  Council  was  at  that  time  turned. 

The  expenses  of  Ireland  were  desperately  heavy, 
and  Elizabeth's  frugal  soul  was  bent  upon  some  plan 
for  their  reduction.  A  scheme  for  reducing  the  cost 
of  police  duty  by  means  of  a  system  of  military 
colonies  had  long  been  a  favourite  one,  and  an  oppor- 
tunity now  occurred  for  turning  it  into  practice.  A 
number    of  men  of  family,  chiefly  from    Devonshire 


178  BETWEEN  TWO  STORMS. 

and  Somersetshire,  undertook  to  migrate  in  a  body 
to  Ireland,  taking  with  them  their  own  farm  ser- 
vants, their  farm  implements,  and  everything  neces- 
sary for  the  work  of  colonization.  The  leader  of 
these  men  was  Sir  Peter  Caj-evv,  who  held  a  shadowy 
claim  over  a  vast  tract  of  territory,  dating  from  the 
reign  of  Henry  II.,  a  claim  which,  however,  had  been 
effectually  disposed  of  by  the  lawyers.  The  scheme 
as  it  was  first  proposed  was  a  truly  gigantic  one.  A 
line  was  to  be  drawn  from  Limerick  to  Cork,  and 
everything  south  of  that  line  was  to  be  given  over  to 
the  adventurers.  As  for  the  natives,  they  said,  they 
would  undertake  to  settle  with  them.  All  they  re- 
quired was  the  queen's  permission.  Everything  else 
they  could  do  for  themselves. 

So  heroic  a  measure  was  not  to  be  put  in  force  at 
once.  As  far  as  Carew's  claims  went,  he  took  the 
matter,  however,  into  his  own  hands  by  forcibly  ex- 
pelling the  occupiers  of  the  lands  in  question,  and 
putting  his  own  retainers  into  them.  As  fortune 
would  have  it,  amongst  the  first  lands  thus  laid  hold 
of  were  some  belonging  to  the  Butlers,  brothers  of 
Lord  Ormond,  and  therefore  probably  the  only  Irish 
landowners  whose  cry  for  justice  was  pretty  certain 
just  then  to  be  heard  in  high  quarters.  Horrible  tales 
of  the  atrocities  committed  by  Carew  and  his  band 
was  reported  by  Sir  Edward  Butler,  who  upon  his 
side  was  not  slow  to  commit  retaliations  of  the  same 
sort.  A  spasm  of  anger,  and  a  wild  dread  of  coming 
contingencies  flew  through  the  whole  South  of  Ire- 
land. Sir  James  Fitzmaurice,  cousin  of  the  Earl  of 
Desmond,  broke  into  open  rebellion ;  so  did  also  both 


PACIFICATION   OF   ORMOND.  179 

the  younger  Butlers.  Ormond  himself,  who  was  in 
England,  was  as  angry  as  the  fiercest,  and  informed 
Cecil  in  plain  terms  that  "if  the  lands  of  good  sub- 
jects were  not  to  be  safe,  he  for  one  would  be  a  good 
subject  no  longer." 

It  was  no  part  of  the  policy  of  the  Government  to 
alienate  the  one  man  in  Ireland  upon  whose  loyalty  they 
could  depend  at  a  pinch.  By  the  personal  efforts  of  the 
queen  his  wrath  was  at  last  pacified,  and  he  agreed 
to  accept  her  earnest  assurance  that  towards  him  at 
least  no  injury  was  intended.  This  done,  he  induced 
his  brothers  to  withdraw  from  the  alliance,  while  Sir 
Henry  Sidney,  sword  in  hand,  went  into  Munster  and 
carried  out  the  work  of  pacification  in  the  usual  fashion, 
burning  villages,  destroying  the  harvest,  driving  off 
cattle,  blowing  up  castles,  and  hanging  their  garrisons 
in  strings  over  the  battlements.  After  which  he 
marched  to  Connaught,  leaving  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert 
behind  him  to  keep  order  in  the  south. 

For  more  than  two  years  Sir  James  Fitzmaurice 
continued  to  hold  out  in  his  rocky  fastness  amongst 
the  Galtese  mountains.  A  sort  of  grim  humour 
pervades  the  relations  between  him  and  Sir  John 
Perrot,  the  new  President  of  Munster.  Perrot  had 
boasted  upon  his  arrival  that  he  would  soon  "  hunt 
that  fox  out  of  his  hole."  The  fox,  however,  showed 
a  disposition  to  take  the  part  of  the  lion,  sallying  out 
unexpectedly,  ravaging  the  entire  district,  burning 
Kilmallock,  and  returning  again  to  his  mountains 
before  he  could  be  interfered  with.  The  following 
year  he  marched  into  Ulster,  and  on  his  way  home  burnt 
Athlone,  the   English  garrison   there   looking  help- 


l8o  BETWEEN   TWO   STORMS. 

lessly  on  ;  joined  the  two  Mac-an-Earlas  as  they 
were  called,  the  sons  of  Lord  Clanricarde,  and 
assisted  them  to  lay  waste  Gahvay,  and  so  returned 
triumphantly  across  the  Shannon  to  Tipperary.  Once 
Perrot  all  but  made  an  end  of  him,  but  his  soldiers 
took  that  convenient  opportunity  of  mutinying,  and 
so  baulked  their  leader  of  his  prey.  Another  time, 
in  despair  of  bringing  the  matter  to  any  conclusion, 
the  president  proposed  that  it  should  be  decided  by 
single  combat  between  them,  a  proposal  which  Fitz- 
maurice  prudently  resisted  on  the  ground  that  though 
Perrot's  place  could  no  doubt  readily  be  supplied, 
his  own  was  less  easily  to  fill,  and  that  therefore  for 
his  followers'  sake  he  must  decline. 

At  last  the  long  game  of  hide-and-seek  was  brought 
to  an  end  by  Sir  James  offering  to  submit,  to 
which  Perrot  agreeing,  he  took  the  required  oaths  in 
the  church  of  Kilmallock,  the  scene  of  his  former 
ravages,  and  kissed  the  president's  sword  in  token 
of  his  regret  for  "the  said  most  mischievous  part." 
This  farce  gravely  gone  through,  he  sailed  for 
France,  and  Munster  for  a  while  was  at  peace.  It 
was  only  a  temporary  lull  though.  The  Desmond 
power  was  still  too  towering  to  be  left  alone,  and 
both  its  defenders  and  the  Government  knew  that  they 
were  merely  indulging  in  a  little  breathing  time  before 
the  final  struggle. 


XXVI. 

THE  DESMOND   REBELLION. 

The  tale  of  the  great  Desmond  rebellion  which 
ended  only  with  the  ruin  of  that  house,  and  with  the 
slaughter  or  starvation  of  thousands  of  its  unhappy 
adherents,  is  one  of  those  abortive  tragedies  of  which 
the  whole  history  of  Ireland  is  full.  Our  pity  for  the 
victims'  doom,  and  our  indignation  for  the  cold-blooded 
cruelty  with  which  that  doom  was  carried  out,  is 
mingled  with  a  reluctant  realization  of  the  fact  that 
the  state  of  things  which  preceded  it  was  practically 
impossible,  that  it  had  become  an  anomal}-,  and 
that  as  such  it  was  bound  either  to  change  or  to 
perish. 

From  the  twelfth  century  onwards,  the  Desmond 
Geraldines  had  been  lords,  as  has  been  seen,  of  a  vast 
tract  of  Ireland,  covering  the  greater  part  of  Munster. 
Earlier  and  perhaps  more  completely  than  any  of  the 
other  great  Norman  houses,  they  had  become  Irish 
chieftains  rather  than  English  subjects,  and  the  opening 
of  Elizabeth's  reign  found  them  still  what  for  centuries 
past  they  had  been,  and  with  their  power,  within  their 
own    limits,  little  if  at  all  curtailed.     The  Desmond 


PREPARATIONS   FOR    THE   STRUGGLE.  183 

of  the  day  had  still  his  own  judges  or  Brehons,  by 
whose  judgment  he  professed  to  rule.  He  had 
still  his  own  palatinate  courts  ;  he  still  collected  his 
dues  by  force,  driving  away  his  clansmen's  cattle, 
and  distraining  those  who  resisted  him.  Only  a 
few  years  before  this  time,  during  an  expedition  of 
the  kind,  he  and  Ormond  had  encountered  one 
another  in  the  open  field  at  Affane,  upon  the 
Southern  Blackwater,  each  side  flying  their  banners, 
and  shouting  their  war  cries  as  if  no  queen's  represen- 
tative had  ever  been  seen  or  heard  of. 

Such  a  state  of  things,  it  was  plain,  could  not  go  on 
indefinitely,  would  not  indeed  have  gone  on  as  long 
but  for  the  confusion  and  disorder  in  which  the  coun- 
try had  always  been  plunged,  and  especially  the  want 
of  all  settled  communication.  The  palatinate  of 
Ormond,  it  is  true,  was  theoretically  in  much  the 
same  state,  but  then  Ormond  was  a  keener  sighted 
and  a  wiser  man  than  Desmond,  and  knew  when  the 
times  demanded  redress.  He  had  of  late  even  made 
some  effort  to  abolish  the  abominable  system  of 
"  coyne  and  livery,"  although,  as  he  himself  frankly 
admits,  he  was  forced  to  impose  it  again  in  another 
form  not  long  afterwards. 

Sir  James  meanwhile  had  left  Ireland,  and  at  every 
Catholic  Court  in  Europe  was  busily  pleading  for  aid 
towards  a  crusade  against  England.  Failing  in  France, 
he  appealed  to  Philip  of  Spain.  Philip,  however,  at  the 
moment  was  not  prepared  to  break  with  Elizabeth, 
whereupon  Fitzmaurice,  undeterred  by  failure,  pre- 
sented himself  next  before  the  Pope.  Here  he  was 
more  successful,  and  preparations  for  the  collection  of 


184        THE   DESMOND   REBELLION. 

a  considerable  force  was  at  once  set  on  foot,  a  pro- 
minent English  refugee,  Dr.  Nicolas  Saunders,  being 
appointed  to  accompany  it  as  legate. 

Saunders,  who  had  distinguished  himself  not  long 
before  by  a  violent  personal  attack  against  Elizabeth, 
threw  himself  heart  and  soul  into  the  enterprise,  and 
in  a  letter  to  Philip  pointed  out  all  the  advantages 
that  were  to  be  won  by  it  to  the  Catholic  cause. 
"Men,"  he  assured  him,  "  were  not  needed."  Guns, 
powder,  a  little  money,  and  a  ship  or  two  with  stores 
from  Spain,  and  the  whole  country  would  soon  be  at 
his  feet. 

Although  absurdly  ignorant,  as  his  own  letters  prove, 
of  a  country  of  which  he  had  once  been  nominally 
king,  Philip  knew  rather  more  probably  about  the 
circumstance  of  the  case  than  Saunders,  and  he  met 
these  insinuating  suggestions  coldly.  A  fleet  in  the 
end  was  fitted  out  and  sent  from  Civita  Vecchia, 
under  the  command  of  an  English  adventurer  Stuke- 
ley,  the  same  Stukeley  in  whose  favour  we  saw  Shane 
O'Neill  appealing  to  Elizabeth.  Though  it  started  for 
Ireland  it  never  arrived  there.  Touching  at  Lisbon, 
Stukeley  was  easily  persuaded  to  give  up  his  first 
scheme,  and  to  join  Sebastian,  king  of  Portugal,  in  a 
buccaneering  expedition  to  Morocco,  and  at  the  battle 
of  Alcansar  both  he  and  Sebastian  with  the  greater 
part  of  their  men  were  killed. 

Fitzmaurice  meanwhile  had  gone  to  Spain  by  land, 
and  had  there  embarked  for  Ireland,  accompanied  by 
his  wife,  two  children,  Saunders,  the  legate,  Allen,  an 
Irish  priest,  a  small  party  of  Italians  and  Spaniards, 
and  a  few  English  refugees,  and  bringing  with  them 


LANDING   OF  DESMOND.  185 

a  banner  especially  consecrated  by  the  Pope  for  this 
service. 

Their  landing-place  was  Dingle,  and  from  there 
they  crossed  to  Smerwick,  where  they  fortified  the 
small  island  peninsula  of  Oilen-an-Oir,  or  "  Gold 
Island,"  where  they  were  joined  by  John  and  James 
Fitzgerald,  brothers  of  the  Earl  of  Desmond,  and  by 
a  party  of  two  hundred  O'Flaherties  from  lar  Con- 
naught,  who,  however,  speedily  left  again. 

But  Desmond  still  vacillated  helplessly.  Now  that 
the  time  had  come  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind 
what  to  do,  or  with  whom  to  side.  He  was  evidently 
cowed.  His  three  imprisonments  lay  heavily  upon  his 
soul.  He  knew  the  power  of  England  better  too  than 
most  of  his  adherents,  and  shrank  from  measuring  his 
own  strength  against  it.  What  he  did  not  realize  was 
that  it  was  too  late  now  to  go  back.  He  had  stood  out 
for  what  he  considered  his  own  rights  when  it  would 
have  been  more  politic  to  have  submitted,  and  now 
he  wanted  to  submit  when  it  was  only  too  plain 
to  all  who  could  read  the  signs  of  the  times  that 
the  storm  was  already  upon  him,  and  that  no  humility 
or  late-found  loyalty  could  avail  to  avert  that  doom 
which  hung  over  his  house. 

If  Desmond  himself  was  slow  to  rise,  the  whole  South 
of  Ireland  was  in  a  state  of  wild  tumult  and  excitement 
when  the  news  of  the  actual  arrival  of  Fitzmaurice  and 
the  legate  became  known.  Nor  in  the  south  alone. 
In  Connaught  and  the  Pale  the  excitement  was  very 
little  less.  Kildare,like  Desmond,  held  back  fearing  the 
personal  consequences  of  rebellion,  but  all  the  younger 
lords  of  the  Pale  were  eager  to  throw  in  their  lot  with 


CATHERINE,    THE    "OLD"   COUNTESS   OF   DESMOND. 

(Reputed  to  have  been  killed  at  the  age  of  120  by  a  fall  from  a  cherry  tree.) 
[From  the  Burne  Collection) 


DEATH  OF  FITZMAUKICE.  187 

Fitzmaurice.  Alone  amongst  the  Irishmen  of  his 
day,  he  possessed  all  the  necessary  qualifications  of  a 
leader.  He  had  already  for  years  successfully  resisted 
the  English.  He  was  known  to  be  a  man  of  great 
courage  and  tenacity,  and  his  reputation  as  a  general 
stood  deservedly  high  in  the  opinion  of  all  his 
countrymen. 

That  extraordinary  good  fortune,  however,  which 
has  so  often  befallen  England  at  awkward  moments, 
and  never  more  conspicuously  than  during  the  closing 
years  of  the  sixteenth  century,  did  not  fail  now. 
Fitzmaurice  started  for  Connaught  to  encourage 
the  insurrection  which  had  been  fast  ripening  there 
under  the  brutal  rule  of  Sir  Nicolas  Malby,  its 
governor.  A  trumpery  quarrel  had  recently  broken 
out  between  the  Desmonds  and  the  Mayo  Bourkes, 
and  this  insignificant  affair  sealed  the  fate  of  what  at 
one  moment  promised  to  be  the  most  formidable 
rebellion  which  had  ever  assailed  the  English  power 
in  Ireland.  At  a  place  called  Barrington's  Bridge,  not 
far  from  Limerick,  where  the  little  river  Muckern 
or  Mulkearn  was  then  crossed  by  a  ford,  Fitz- 
maurice was  set  upon  by  the  Bourkes.  Only  a  few 
followers  were  with  him  at  the  time,  and  in  turning  to 
expostulate  with  one  of  his  assailants,  he  was  killed 
by  a  pistol  shot,  and  fell  from  his  horse.  This  was 
upon  the  1 8th  of  August,  1579.  From  that  moment 
the  Desmond  rising  was  doomed. 

Desmond  meanwhile  still  sat  vacillating  in  his 
own  castle  of  Askeaton,  neither  joining  the  rising, 
nor  yet  exerting  himself  vigorously  to  put  it  down. 
Malby,  who  had  newly  arrived  from  Connaught,  took 


l88  THE   DESMOND   REBELLION. 

steps  to  hasten  his  decision.  Ordering  the  earl  to 
come  to  him,  and  the  latter  still  hesitating,  he  marched 
against  Askeaton,  utterly  destroyed  the  town  up  to 
the  walls  of  the  castle,  burning  everything  in  the 
neighbourhood,  including  the  abbey  and  the  tombs 
of  the  Desmonds,  the  castle  itself  only  escaping 
through  the  lack  of  ammunition. 

This  hint  seems  to  have  sufficed.  Desmond  was  at 
last  convinced  that  the  time  for  temporizing  was  over. 
He  rose,  and  all  Munster  rose  with  him.  Ormond  was 
still  in  London,  and  hurried  over  to  find  all  in  disorder. 
Drury  had  lately  died,  and  the  only  other  English  com- 
mander, Malby,  was  crippled  for  want  of  men,  and 
had  been  obliged  to  retreat  into  Connaught.  The  new 
deputy,  Sir  William  Pelham,  had  just  arrived,  and  he 
and  Ormond  now  proceeded  to  make  a  concerted 
attack.  Advancing  in  two  separate  columns  they 
destroyed  everything  which  came  in  their  way  ;  men, 
women,  children,  infants,  the  old,  the  blind,  the  sick  all 
alike  were  mercilessly  slaughtered  ;  not  a  roof,  how- 
ever humble,  was  spared  ;  not  a  living  creature  that 
crossed  their  path  survived  to  tell  the  tale.  Lady 
Fitzmaurice  and  her  two  little  children  seem  to  have 
been  amongst  the  number  of  these  nameless  and  un- 
counted victims,  for  they  were  never  heard  of  again. 
From  Adare  and  Askeaton  to  the  extreme  limits  of 
Kerry,  everything  perishable  was  destroyed.  The 
two  commanders  met  one  another  at  Tralee,  and  from 
this  point  carried  on  their  raid  in  unison,  and  returned, 
to  Askeaton  and  Cork,  leaving  the  whole  country  a 
desert  behind  them.  There  was  little  or  no  resistance. 
The  Desmond  clansmen  were  not  soldiers  ;  they  were 


HELP  FROM  SPAIN.  189 

unarmed,  or  armed  only  with  spears  and  skeans. 
They  had  just  lost  their  only  leader.  They  could 
do  nothing  but  sullenly  watch  the  progress  of  the 
English  forces.  Desmond,  his  two  brothers,  and 
the  legate  were  already  fugitives.  The  rising  seemed 
to  be  all  but  crushed,  when  a  new  incident  occurred 
to  spur  it  into  a  momentary  vitality. 

Four  Spanish  vessels,  containing  800  men,  chiefly 
Italians,  had  managed  to  pass  unperceived  by  the 
English  admiral.  Winter's,  fleet,  and  to  land  at 
Smerwick,  where  they  established  themselves  in  Fitz- 
maurice's  dismantled  fort.  They  found  everything  in 
confusion.  They  had  brought  large  supplies  of  arms 
for  their  Irish  allies,  but  there  were  apparently  no  Irish 
allies  to  give  them  to.  The  legate  and  Desmond  had 
first  to  be  found,  and  now  that  arms  had  come,  the 
Munster  tribesmen  had  for  the  most  part  been  killed 
or  dispersed.  Ormond  and  Pelham's  terrible  raid 
had  done  its  work,  and  the  heart  of  the  rising  was 
broken.  The  Pale,  however,  had  now  caught  the  fire, 
and  though  Kildare,  its  natural  leader,  still  hung  back, 
Lord  Baltinglass  and  some  of  the  bolder  spirits  flew 
to  arms,  and  threw  themselves  into  the  Wicklow 
highlands  where  they  joined  their  forces  with  those 
of  the  O'Byrnes,  and  were  presently  joined  by  Sir 
John  of  Desmond  and  a  handful  of  Fitzgeralds. 

Lord  Grey  de  Wilton  had  by  this  time  arrived  in 
Ireland  as  deputy.  Utterly  inexperienced  in  Irish 
wars,  he  despised  and  underrated  the  capabilities  of 
those  opposed  to  him,  and  refused  peremptorily  to  listen 
to  the  advice  of  more  experienced  men.  Hastening 
south,  his  advanced  guard  was  caught  by  Baltinglass 


igo  THE  DESMOND  REBELLION. 

and  the  other  insurgents  in  the  valley  of  Glenmalure, 
A  well-directed  fire  was  poured  into  the  defile  ;  the 
English  troops  broke,  and  tried  to  flee,  and  were  shot 
down  in  numbers  amongst  the  rocks. 

Lord  Grey  had  no  time  to  retrieve  this  disaster. 
Leaving  the  Pale  tc  the  mercy  of  the  successful 
rebels,  he  hastened  south,  and  arrived  in  Kerry  before 
Smervvick  fort.  Amongst  the  small  band  of  officers 
who  accompanied  him  on  this  occasion  were  Walter 
Raleigh  and  Edmund  Spenser,  both  then  young  men, 
and  both  of  them  all  but  unknown  to  fame. 

The  English  admiral.  Winter,  with  his  fleet  had 
long  been  delayed  by  bad  weather.  When  at  length 
it  arrived,  cannon  were  landed  and  laid  in  position 
upon  the  sand  hills.  Next  day  the  siege  com- 
menced. There  was  heavy  firing  on  both  sides,  but 
the  fort  was  soon  found  to  be  untenable.  The  garrison 
thereupon  offered  to  capitulate,^  and  an  uncondi- 
tional surrender  was  demanded.  There  being  no  alter- 
native, these  terms  were  accepted.  Lord  Grey  there- 
upon "  put  in  certain  bands,"  under  the  command  of 
Captain  Raleigh.  "The  Spaniard,"  says  Spenser, 
who  was  an  eye-witness  of  the  whole  scene,  "  did 
absolutely  yield  himself,  and  the  fort,  and  all  therein, 
and  only  asked  mercy."  This,  "  it  was  not  thought 
good,"  he  adds,  "to  show  them."  They  were  accordingly 
all  slaughtered  in  cold  blood,  a  few  women  and  priests 
who  were  with  them  hanged,  the  officers  being  reserved 
for  ransom.  "  There  was  no  other  way,"  Spenser 
observes  in  conclusion,  "  but  to  make  that  end  of 
them  as  thus  was  done."  ^ 

'  "View  of  the  State  of  Ireland,"  pp.  5,  11. 


DESMOND  A    FUGITIVE.  IQT 

This  piece  of  work  satisfactorily  finished,  Grey 
returned  rapidly  to  DubHn  to  crush  the  Leinster 
insurgents.  Kildare  and  Delvin,  though  they  had 
kept  themselves  clear  of  the  rebellion,  were  arrested 
and  thrown  into  prison.  Small  bands  of  troopers 
were  sent  into  the  Wicklow  mountains  to  hunt  out 
the  insurgents.  Baltinglass  escaped  to  the  Continent, 
but  the  two  Eustaces  his  brothers,  with  Garrot  O'Toole 
and  Feagh  McHugh  were  caught,  killed,  and  their 
heads  sent  to  Dublin,  Clanricarde's  two  sons,  the 
Mac-an-Earlas,  were  out  in  the  Connemara  mountains 
and  could  not  be  got  at  ;  but  ]\Ialby  again  overran 
their  country,  burning  houses  and  slaughtering  without 
mercy.  In  Dublin,  the  Anglo-Irishmen  of  the  Pale 
were  being  brought  to  trial  for  treason,  and  hung  or 
beheaded  in  batches.  Kildare  was  sent  to  England 
to  die  in  the  Tower.  With  the  exception  of  the  North, 
which  on  this  occasion  had  kept  quiet,  the  whole 
country  had  become  one  great  reeking  shambles  ; 
what  sword  and  rope  and  torch  had  spared,  famine 
came  in  to  complete. 

The  Earl  of  Desmond  was  now  a  houseless  fugitive, 
hunted  like  a  wolf  or  mad  dog  through  the  valleys 
and  over  the  mountains  of  his  own  ancestral  "  king- 
dom." His  brothers  had  already  fallen.  Sir  John 
Fitzgerald  had  been  killed  near  Cork,  and  his  body 
hung  head  downwards,  by  Raleigh's  order,  upon  the 
bridge  of  the  river  Lee.  The  other  brother,  Sir  James, 
had  met  with  a  similar  fate.  Saunders,  the  legate,  had 
died  of  cold  and  exposure.  Desmond  alone  escaped, 
time  after  time,  and  month  after  month.  Hunted,  des- 
perate, in  want  of  the  bare  necessities  of  life,  he  was  still 


lg2         THE  DESMOND   REBELLION. 

in  his  own  eyes  the  Desmond,  ancestral  owner  of  nearly 
a  hundred  miles  of  territory.  Never  in  his  most  suc- 
cessful period  a  man  of  any  particular  strength  of 
character,  sheer  pride  seems  to  have  upheld  him  now. 
He  scorned  to  make  terms  with  his  hated  enemy, 
Ormond.  If  he  yielded  to  any  one,  he  sent  word,  it 
would  be  only  to  the  queen  herself  in  person.  He 
was  not  given  the  chance.  Hunted  over  the  Slievemish 
mountains,  with  the  price  of  ^i,ooo  on  his  head,  one 
by  one  the  trusty  companions  who  had  clung  to  him 
so  faithfully  were  taken  and  killed.  His  own  course 
could  inevitably  be  but  a  short  one.  News  reached 
the  English  captain  at  Castlemain  one  night  that  the 
prey  was  not  far  off.  A  dozen  English  soldiers  stole 
up  the  stream  in  the  grey  of  the  morning.  The  cabin 
where  the  Desmond  lay  was  surrounded,  the  door 
broken  in,  and  the  earl  stabbed  before  there  was  time 
for  him  to  spring  from  his  bed.  The  tragedy  had  now 
been  played  out  to  the  bitterest  end.  As  formerly 
with  the  Leinster  Geraldines,  so  now  with  the  Mun- 
ster  ones,  of  the  direct  heirs  of  the  house  only  a 
single  child  was  left,  a  feeble  boy,  afterwards  known 
by  the  significant  title  of  the  "  Tower  Earl,"  with  the 
extinguishing  of  whose  sickly  tenure  of  life  the  very 
name  of  Desmond  ceases  to  appear  upon  the  page  of 
Irish  history. 


XXVII. 


BETWEEN   TWO   MORE   STORMS. 


Two  great  risings  against  Elizabeth's  power  in 
Ireland  had  thus  been  met  and  suppressed.  A  third 
and  a  still  more  formidable  one  was  yet  to  come.  The 
interval  was  filled  with  renewed  efforts  at  colonization 
upon  a  yet  larger  scale  than  before.  Munster,  which 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Desmond  rising  had  been 
accounted  the  most  fertile  province  in  Ireland,  was 
now  little  better  than  a  desert.  Not  once  or  twice 
but  many  times  the  harvest  had  been  burnt  and  de- 
stroyed, and  great  as  had  been  the  slaughter,  numerous 
as  were  the  executions,  they  had  been  far  eclipsed  by 
the  multitude  of  those  who  had  died  of  sheer  famine. 

Spenser's  evidence  upon  this  point  has  been  often 
quoted,  but  no  other  words  will  bring  the  picture 
before  us  in  the  same  simple,  awful  vividness  ;  nor 
must  it  be  forgotten  that  the  man  who  tells  it  was 
under  no  temptation  to  exaggerate  having  himself 
been  a  sharer  in  the  deeds  which  had  produced  so 
sickening  a  calamity. 

"  They  were  brought  to  such  wretchedness,"  he 
says,  "  that  any  stony  heart  would  rue  the  same. 
Out  of  every  corner  of   the  woods  and  glens,  they 


194  BETWEEN    TWO   MORE    STORMS. 

came,  creeping  forth  upon  their  hands,  for  their  legs 
could  not  bear  them.  They  looked  like  anatomies  of 
death  ;  they  spoke  like  ghosts  crying  out  of  their 
graves.  They  did  eat  the  dead  carrions,  where  they 
did  find  them,  yea  and  one  another  soon  after,  in  as 
much  as  the  very  carcases  they  spared  not  to  scrape 
out  of  their  graves  ;  and  if  they  found  a  plot  of 
watercresses  or  shamrocks,  there  they  thronged  as  to 
a  feast." 

To  replace  this  older  population,  thus  starved, 
slaughtered,  made  away  with  by  sword  and  pestilence 
with  new  colonists  was  the  scheme  of  the  hour. 
Desmond's  vast  estate,  covering  nearly  six  hundred 
thousand  Irish  acres,  not  counting  waste  land,  had  all 
been  declared  forfeit  to  the  Crown.  This  and  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  territory  also  forfeit  in  Leinster 
was  now  offered  to  English  colonists  upon  the  most 
advantageous  terms.  No  rent  was  to  be  paid  at  first, 
and  for  ten  years  the  undertakers  were  to  be  allowed 
to  send  their  exports  duty  free. 

Many  eminent  names  figure  in  the  long  list  of 
these  "  undertakers "  ;  amongst  them  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  Sir  Christopher  Hatton,  Sir  Wareham  St. 
Leger,  Edmund  Spenser  himself.  Sir  Thomas  Norris, 
and  others,  all  of  whom  received  grants  of  different 
\  portions.  But  "  the  greater,"  says  Leland,  "  their 
rank  and  consequence,  the  more  were  they  emboldened 
to  neglect  the  terms  of  their  grant."  Instead  of  com- 
pleting their  stipulated  number  of  tenantry,  the  same 
persons  often  were  admitted  as  tenants  to  different 
undertakers,  and  in  the  same  seniory  sometimes 
served  at  once    as  freeholder,  leaseholder,  and  copy- 


FAILURE   OF  COLONIZATION   SCHEME.  195 

holder,  so  as  to  fill  up  the  necessary  number  of  each 
denomination. 

The  whole  scheme  of  colonization  proved,  in  short, 
a  miserable  failure.  English  farmers  and  labourers 
declined  to  come  over  in  sufficient  numbers.  Those 
that  did  come  left  again  in  despair  after  a  time.  The 
dispossessed  owners  hung  about,  and  raided  the  goods 
of  the  settlers  whenever  opportunity  offered.  The 
exasperation  on  both  sides  increased  as  years  went 
on  ;  the  intruders  becoming  fewer  and  more  tyrannical, 
the  natives  rapidly  growing  more  numerous  and  more 
desperate.  It  was  plain  that  the  struggle  would  break 
out  again  at  the  first  chance  which  offered  itself.  - 

That  occasion  arose  not  in  Munster  itself,  but  at 
the  opposite  end  of  the  island.  In  Ulster  the  great 
southern  rising  had  produced  singularly  little  excite- 
ment. The  chiefs  for  the  most  part  had  remained 
aloof,  and  to  a  great  degree,  loyal.  The  O'Don- 
nells,  who  had  been  reinstated  it  will  be  remem- 
bered in  their  own  territory  by  Sidney,  kept  the 
peace.  Sir  John  Perrot,  who  after  the  departure 
of  Grey  became  Lord-deputy,  seems  in  spite  of  his 
severity  to  have  won  confidence.  Old  Tyrlough 
Luinagh  who  had  been  elected  O'Neill  at  the  death  of 
Shane,  seems  even  to  have  felt  a  personal  attachment 
for  him,  which  is  humorously  shown  by  his  con- 
senting on  several  occasions  to  appear  at  his  court  in 
English  attire,  habiliments  which  the  Irish,  like  the 
the  Scotch  chiefs,  objected  to  strongly  as  tending 
to  make  them  ridiculous.  "  Prythee  at  least,  my 
lord,"  he  is  reported  to  have  said  on  one  of  these 
occasions,  "  let  my  chaplain   attend    mc   in    his    Irish 


l^ORD-DEPUTY   FROM    I584  TO    15S8. 


^I3nna^tm,JimULf 


FITZWILLIAM'S    SEARCH   FOR    TREASURE.      ig7 

mantle,  that  so  your  English  rabble  may  be  directed 
from  my  uncouth  figure  and  laugh  at  him." 

Perrot,  however,  had  now  fallen  under  the  royal 
displeasure  ;  had  been  recalled  and  sent  to  the 
Tower,  a  common  enough  climax  in  those  days  to 
years  spent  in  the  arduous  Irish  service.  His  place 
was  taken  in  1588  by  Sir  William  Fitzwilliam,  who 
had  held  it  nearly  thirty  years  earlier.  Fitzwilliam 
was  a  man  of  very  inferior  calibre  to  Perrot.  Avari- 
cious by  nature  he  had  been  highly  dissatisfied  with 
the  poor  rewards  which  his  former  services  had  ob- 
tained. Upon  making  some  remonstrance  to  that 
effect  he  had  been  told  that  the  "  position  of  an  Irish 
Lord-deputy  was  an  honourable  one  and  should 
challenge  no  reward."  Upon  this  hint  he  seems  now 
to  have  acted.  Since  the  Lord-deputy  was  not  to  be 
better  rewarded,  the  Lord-deputy,  he  apparently  con- 
cluded, had  better  help  himself  The  Spanish  Armada 
had  been  destroyed  a  few  years  back,  and  ships  be- 
longing to  it  had  been  strewed  in  dismal  wreck  all 
along  the  North,  South,  and  West  coasts  of  Ireland. 
It  was  believed  that  much  gold  had  been  hidden  away 
by  the  wretched  survivors,  and  fired  with  the  hope  of 
laying  his  own  hands  upon  this  treasure.  Sir  William 
first  issued  a  permission  for  searching,  and  then  started 
himself  upon  the  search.  He  marched  into  Ulster  in 
the  dead  of  winter,  at  considerable  cost  to  the  State, 
and  with  absolutely  no  result.  Either,  as  was  most 
likely,  there  was  no  treasure,  or  the  treasure  had  been 
well  hidden.  Furious  at  this  disappointment  he  ar- 
rested two  upon  his  own  showing  of  the  most  loyal 
and    law-abiding    landowners    in    Ulster,    Sir    Owen 


198  BETWEEN   TWO   MORE   STORMS. 

McToole  and  Sir  John  O'Dogherty  ;  dragged  them 
back  to  Dubh'n  with  him,  flung  them  into  the  castle, 
and  demanded  a  large  sum  for  their  liberation. 

This  was  a  high-handed  proceeding  in  all  conscience, 
but  there  was  worse  to  come  ;  it  seemed  as  if  the 
new  deputy  had  laid  himself  out  for  the  task  of  in- 
flaming Ulster  to  the  highest  possible  pitch  of  exaspe- 
ration, and  so  of  once  more  awakening  the  scarce  extin- 
guished flames  of  civil  war.  McMahon,  the  chief  of 
Monaghan,  had  surrendered  his  lands,  held  previously 
by  tanistry,  and  had  received  a  new  grant  of  them 
under  the  broad  seal  of  England,  to  himself  and 
his  heirs  male,  and  failing  such  heirs  to  his  brother 
Hugh.  At  his  death  Hugh  went  to  Dublin  and  re- 
quested to  be  put  into  possession  of  his  inheritance. 
This  Fitzwilliam  agreed  to,  and  returned  with  him 
to  Monaghan,  apparently  for  the  purpose.  Hardly 
had  he  arrived  there,  however,  before  he  trumped  up 
an  accusation  to  the  effect  that  Hugh  McMahon 
had  collected  rents  two  years  previously  by  force — 
the  only  method,  it  may  be  said  in  passing,  by  which 
in  those  unsettled  parts  of  the  country  rents  ever  were 
collected  at  all.  It  was  not  an  offence  by  law  being 
committed  outside  the  shire,  and  he  was  therefore  tried 
for  it  by  court-martial.  He  was  brought  before  a 
jury  of  private  soldiers,  condemned,  and  executed  in 
two  days.  His  estate  was  thereupon  broken  up,  the 
greater  part  of  it  being  divided  between  Sir  Henry  Bag- 
nail,  three  or  four  English  officers,  and  some  Dublin 
lawyers,  the  Crown  reserving  for  itself  a  quit  rent. 
Little  wonder  if  the  other  Ulster  landowners  felt  that 
their  turn  would  come  next,  and  that  no  loyalty  could 


THE  EARL   OF   TYRONE.  igg 

assure  a  man's  safety  so  long  as  he  liad  anything  to 
lose  that  was  worth  the  taking. 

At  this  time  the  natural  leader  of  the  province  was 
not  Tyrlough  Luinagh,  who  though  called  the  O'Neill 
was  an  old  man  and  failing  fast.  The  real  leader  was 
Hugh  O'Neill,  son  of  Matthew  the  first  Baron  of 
Dungannon,  who  had  been  killed,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, by  Shane  O'Neill,  by  whose  connivance  Hugh's 
elder  brother  had  also,  it  was  believed,  been  made 
away  with.  Hugh  had  been  educated  in  England, 
had  been  much  at  Court,  and  had  found  favour  with 
Elizabeth,  who  had  confirmed  him  in  the  title  of  Earl 
of  Tyrone  which  had  been  originally  granted  to  his 
grandfather. 

Tyrone  was  the  very  antipodes  of  Shane,  the  last 
.great  O'Neill  leader.  He  was  much  more,  in  fact,  of  an 
English  politician  and  courtier  than  an  Irish  chieftain. 
He  had  served  in  the  English  army  ;  had  fought  with 
credit  under  Grey  in  Munster,  and  was  intimately 
acquainted  with  all  the  leading  Englishmen  of  the 
day.  Even  his  religion,  unlike  that  of  most  Irish 
Catholics  of  the  day,  seems  to  have  sat  but  lightly 
upon  him.  Captain  Lee,  an  English  officer,  quar- 
tered in  Ulster,  in  a  very  interesting  letter  to  the 
queen  written  about  this  time,  assures  her  confiden- 
tially that,  although  a  Roman  Catholic,  he  "  is  less 
dangerously  or  hurtfully  so  than  some  of  the  greatest 
in  the  English  Pale,"  for  that  when  he  accompanied 
the  Lord-deputy  to  church  "  he  will  stay  and  hear  a 
sermon  ; "  whereas  they  "  when  they  have  reached  the 
church  door  depart  as  if  they  were  wild  cats."  He 
adds,  as  a  further  recommendation,  that  by  way  of 


200  BETWEEN   TWO   MORE   STORMS. 

domestic  chaplain  he  has  at  present  but  "  one  little 
cub  of  an  English  priest."  Lord  Essex  in  still  plainer 
terms  told  Tyrone  himself  when  he  was  posing  as  the 
champion  of  Catholicism  :  "  Dost  t/iou  talk  of  a  free 
exercise  of  religion !  Why  thou  carest  as  little  for 
rcHgion  as  my  horse." 

Such  a  man  was  little  likely  to  rush  blindly  into  a 
rebellion  in  which  he  had  much  to  lose  and  little  to 
gain.  He  knew,  as  few  Irishmeii  knew,  the  strength 
of  England.  He  knew  something  also  of  Spain, 
and  of  what  had  come  of  trusting  for  help  in  that 
direction.  Hitherto,  therefore,  his  influence  had  been 
steadily  thrown  upon  the  side  of  order.  He  had 
more  than  once  assisted  the  deputy  to  put  down 
risings  in  the  north,  and,  on  the  whole,  had  borne  his 
part  loyally  as  a  dutiful  subject  of  the  queen. 

Now,  however,  he  had  come  to  a  point  where  the 
ways  branched.  He  had  to  choose  his  future  course, 
and  there  were  many  causes  pushing  him  all  but 
irresistibly  into  an  attitude  of  rebellion.  One  of 
these  was  the  arbitrary  arrest  of  his  brother-in-law 
Hugh  O'Donnell,  called  Red  Hugh,  who  had  been 
induced  to  come  on  board  a  Government  vessel  by 
means  of  a  friendly  invitation,  and  had  been  then 
and  there  seized,  flung  under  hatches,  and  carried  off 
as  a  hostage  to  Dublin  Castle,  from  which,  after  years 
of  imprisonment,  he  had  managed  to  escape  by 
stealth  in  the  dead  of  winter,  and  arrived  half  dead 
of  cold  and  exposure  in  his  own  country,  where  his 
treatment  had  aroused  the  bitterest  and  most  implac- 
able hostility  in  the  breast  of  all  the  clan.  A  more 
directly    personal   affair,  and  the   one   that  probably 


REVOLT  OF  TYRONE.  20l 

more  than  any  other  single  cause  pushed  Tyrone  over 
the  frontiers  of  rebellion,  was  the  following.  Upon  the 
death  of  his  wife  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  Bagnall, 
the  Lord-Marshall's,  sister,  and  had  asked  for  her  hand. 
This  Bagnall,  for  some  reason,  refused,  whereupon 
Tyrone,  having  already  won  the  lady's  heart,  carried 
her  off,  and  they  were  married,  an  act  which  the 
marshall  never  forgave. 

From  that  moment  he  became  his  implacable 
enemy,  made  use  of  his  position  to  ply  the  queen 
and  Council  with  accusations  against  his  brother- 
in-law,  and  when  Tyrone  replied  to  those  charges 
the  answers  were  intercepted.  It  took  some  time  to 
undermine  Elizabeth's  confidence  in  the  earl,  having 
previously  had  many  proofs  of  his  loyalty.  It  took 
some  time,  too,  to  induce  Tyrone  himself  to  go  in  the 
direction  in  which  every  event  seemed  now  to  be 
pushing  him.  Once,  however,  his  mind  was  made  up 
and  his  retreat  cut  off,  he  set  to  work  at  his  prepa- 
rations upon  a  scale  which  soon  showed  the  Govern- 
ment that  they  had  this  time  no  fiery  half-savage 
Shane,  no  incapable  vacillating  Desmond  to  deal 
with. 

An  alliance  with  the  O'Donnells  and  the  other  chiefs 
of  the  north  was  his  first  step.  He  was  by  no  means 
to  be  contented  however  with  a  merely  provincial 
rising.  He  despatched  messages  to  Connaught,  and 
enlisted  the  Burkes  in  the  affair  ;  also  the  O'Connor  of 
Sligo,  the  McDermot  and  other  western  chiefs.  In 
Wicklow  the  O'Byrnes,  always  ready  for  a  fray,  agreed 
to  join  the  revolt,  with  all  that  was  left  of  the 
tribes  of  Leix  and  Offaly.      These,  with  the  Kava- 


202  BETWEEN    TWO   MORE   STORMS. 

naghs  and  others,  united  to  form  a  solemn  union, 
binding  themselves  to  stand  or  fall  together.  To 
Spajn  Tyrone  sent  letters  urging  the  necessity  of  an 
immediate  despatch  of  troops.  With  the  Pope  he 
also  put  himself  into  communication,  and  the  ris- 
ing was  openly  and  avowedly  declared  to  be  a 
Catholic  one.  Just  at  this  juncture  old  Tyrlough 
Luinagh  died,  and  Tyrone  forthwith  assumed  the 
soul-stirrmg  name  of  "  The  O'Neill  "  for  himself  Let 
the  Spanish  allies  only  arrive  in  time  and  the  rule  of 
England  it  was  confidently  declared  would  shortly  in 
Ireland  be  a  thing  of  the  past. 


INITIAL   LETTER   FROM   THE   BOOK   OF   KELLS. 


XXVIII. 

BATTLE   OF   THE   YELLOW   FORD. 

The  northern  river  Blackwater — there  are  at  least 
three  Blackwaters  in  Ireland — forms  the  southern 
boundary  of  the  county  Tyrone,  which  takes  a  suc- 
cession of  deep  loops  or  elbows  in  order  to  follow  its 
windings.  At  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  and 
for  centuries  previously  it  had  marked  the  boundary 
of  the  territory  of  the  chiefs  or  princes  of  Tyrone, 
and  here,  therefore,  it  was  that  the  struggle  between 
the  earl  and  the  queen's  troops  advancing  from 
Dublin  was  necessarily  fought  out. 

A  good  deal  of  desultory  fighting  took  place  at 
first,  without  any  marked  result  upon  either  side. 
Tyrone  got  possession  of  the  English  fort  which 
commanded  the  passage  of  the  river,  but  it  was  in 
turn  snatched  from  him  by  the  lately  arrived  deput}', 
Lord  Borough,  who,  however,  was  so  severely  wounded 
in  the  affray  that  he  had  to  fall  back  upon  Newry, 
where  he  not  long  afterwards  died.  Ireland  was 
thus  for  the  moment  without  a  governor,  and  when 
after  a  temporary  armistice,  which  Tyrone  spun  out 
as  long  as  possible  in  hopes  of  his  Spanish  allies 
appearing,  hostilities  recommenced,  the  command  de- 


204  BATTLE    OF   THE    YELLOW  FORD. 

volved  upon  his  brother-in-law  and  chief  enemy,  Sir 
Henry  Bagnall. 

Bagnall  had  between  four  and  five  thousand  men 
under  him,  Tyrone  having  about  the  same  number,  or 
a  Httle  less.  A  few  years  previously  a  very  small 
body  of  English  troops  had  been  able,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  put  to  flight  fully  three  times  their  own 
number  of  Irish.  In  the  last  dozen  years  circum- 
stances however  had  in  this  respect  very  materially 
changed.  The  Desmond  followers  had  been  for  the 
most  part  armed  only  with  skeans  and  spears,  much 
as  their  ancestors  had  been  under  Brian  Boru.  One 
English  soldier  armed  with  a  gun  could  put  to  flight 
a  dozen  such  assailants  as  easily  as  a  sportsman  a 
dozen  wolves.  Tyrone's  men,  on  the  other  hand,  were 
almost  as  well  armed  as  their  antagonists.  Some  of 
these  arms  had  come  from  Spain,  others  had  been 
purchased  at  high  prices  from  the  English  soldiery, 
others  again  from  dealers  in  Dublin  and  elsewhere. 
Man  to  man,  and  with  equal  arms,  the  Ulster  men 
were  fully  equal  to  their  assailants,  as  they  were  now 
about  to  prove. 

In  August,  1598,  Bagnall  advancing  from  the  south 
found  Tyrone  engaged  in  a  renewed  attack  upon  the 
fort  of  Blackwater,  which  he  had  invested,  and  was 
endeavouring  to  reduce  by  famine.  At  the  advance 
of  Bagnall  he  withdrew  however  to  a  strong  position 
a  few  miles  from  the  fort,  and  there  awaited  attack. 

The  battle  was  not  long  delayed.  The  bitter 
personal  hatred  which  animated  the  two  leaders  seems 
to  have  communicated  itself  to  the  men,  and  the 
struggle  was  unprecedently    fierce  and    bloody.      In 


DEFEAT   OF  BAGNALL.  205 

the  thick  of  the  engagement  Bagnall,  lifting  his 
beaver  for  a  moment  to  get  air,  was  shot  through  the 
forehead  and  fell.  His  fall  was  followed  by  the  com- 
plete rout  of  his  army.  Fifteen  hundred  soldiers 
and  thirteen  officers  were  killed,  thirty-four  flags 
taken,  and  all  the  artillery,  ammunition,  and  pro- 
visions fell  into  the  victor's  hands.  The  fort  im- 
mediately surrendered,  and  the  remains  of  the  royal 
army  fled  in  confusion  to  Armagh,  which  shortly 
abandoning,  they  again  fled  south,  not  attempting 
to  re-form  until  they  took  refuge  at  last  in  Dundalk. 
Such  an  event  as  this  could  have  but  one  result. 
All  the  vvaverers  were  decided,  and  all  determined  to 
throw  in  their  lot  with  the  victor.  The  talisman 
of  success  is  of  more  vital  importance  to  an  Irish 
army  than  probably  to  any  other,  not  because 
the  courage  of  its  soldiers  is  less,  but  because  their 
imagination  is  greater,  and  more  easily  worked  upon. 
A  soldier  is  probably  better  without  too  much  imagi- 
nation. If  the  auguries  are  unfavourable  he  in- 
stinctively augments,  and  exaggerates  them  tenfold. 
Now,  however,  all  the  auguries  were  favourable. 
Hope  stood  high.  The  Catholic  cause  had  never 
before  showed  so  favourably.  From  Malin  Head  to 
Cape  Clear  all  Ireland  was  in  a  wild  buzz  of  excite- 
ment, and  every  fighting  kern  and  gallowglass  clutched 
his  pike  with  a  sense  of  coming  triumph. 


XXIX. 


THE    ESSEX   FAILURE. 


Elizabeth  was  now  nearly  seventy  years  of  age, 
and  this  was  her  third  war  in  Ireland.  Nevertheless, 
she  and  her  Council  girded  themselves  resolutely  to 
the  struggle.  There  could  at  least  be  no  half-hearted 
measure  now  ;  no  petty  pleas  of  economy ;  no  pe- 
nurious doling  out  of  men  and  money.  No  one,  not 
even  the  queen  herself,  could  reasonably  question  the 
gravity  of  the  crisis. 

The  next  person  to  appear  upon  the  scene  is  Robert 
Devereux,  Earl  of  Essex,  whose  brilliant  mercurial 
figure  flashes  for  a  moment  across  the  wild  and 
troubled  stage  of  Ireland,  only  the  next  to  vanish 
like  some  Will-o'-the-wisp  into  an  abyss  of  darkness 
and  disaster. 

At  that  moment  his  fame  as  a  soldier  stood  as  high 
if  not  higher  than  that  of  any  of  his  cotemporaries. 
If  Raleigh  or  Sidney  had  more  military  genius,  if^  his 
old  rival.  Sir  Henry  Norris,  was  a  more  capable 
general,  the  young  earl  had  eclipsed  all  others  in 
mere  dash  and  brilliancy,  and  within  the  last  few 
years  had  dazzled  the  eyes  of  the  whole  nation  by  the 
success   of   his    famous  feat    in    Spain,  "  The    most 


2o8  THE   ESSEX  FAILURE. 

brilliant  exploit,"  says  Lord  Macaulay,  "achieved 
by  English  arms  upon  the  Continent,  between  Agin- 
court  and  Blenheim." 

Essex  was  now  summoned  to  the  queen  and  given 
the  supreme  command  in  Ireland,  with  orders  to  pro- 
ceed at  once  to  the  reduction  of  Tyrone.  An  army  of 
20,000  infantry  and  1,300  horse  were  placed  under 
him,  and  the  title  of  Lord-Lieutenant  conferred, 
which  had  not  been  granted  to  any  one  under  royal 
blood  for  centuries.  He  started  with  a  brilliant  train, 
including  a  number  of  well-born  volunteers,  who 
gladly  offered  their  services  to  the  popular  favourite, 
and  landed  in   Dublin  early  in  the  month  of  April, 

1599- 

His  disasters  seem  to  have  dated  from  the  very 
moment  of  his  setting  foot  on  Irish  soil.  Contrary 
to  orders,  he  had  appointed  his  relative,  the  Earl  of 
Southampton,  to  the  command  of  the  horse,  an  ap- 
pointment which  even  after  peremptory  orders  from 
the  queen  he  declined  to  cancel.  He  went  south 
when  he  was  eagerly  expected  to  go  north.  Spent  a 
whole  fortnight  in  taking  the  single  castle  of  Cahir  ; 
lingered  about  the  Limerick  woods  in  pursuit  of  a 
nephew  of  the  late  Desmond,  derisively  known  as  the 
"  Sugane  Earl,"  or  "  Earl  of  Straw,"  wlio  in  the  absence 
of  the  young  heir  had  collected  the  remnants  of  the 
Desmond  followers  about  him,  and  was  in  league  with 
Tyrone.  A  few  weeks  later  a  party  of  English  soldiers 
were  surprised  by  the  O'Byrnes  in  Wicklow,  and  fled 
shamefully  ;  while  almost  at  the  same  moment — by  a 
misfortune  which  was  certainly  no  fault  of  Essex's,  but 
which  went   to   swell    the   list   of  his  disasters — Sir 


Armistice  with  Tyrone.  209 

Conyers  Clifford,  the  gallant  governor  of  Connaught, 
was  defeated  by  the  O'Donnells  in  a  skirmish  among 
the  Curlew  mountains,  and  both  he  and  Sir  Alexander 
Ratcliffe,  the  second  in  command,  left  dead  upon  the 
field. 

Essex's  very  virtues  and  better  qualities,  in  fact, 
were  all  against  him  in  this  fatal  service.  His 
natural  chivalrousness,  his  keen  perception  of  in- 
justice, a  certain  elevation  of  mind  which  debarred 
him  from  taking  the  stereotyped  English  official 
view  of  the  intricate  Irish  problem ;  an  indepen- 
dence of  vulgar  motives  which  made  him  prone  to 
see  two  sides  of  a  question — even  where  his  own  in- 
terests required  that  he  should  see  but  one — all  these 
were  against  him  ;  all  tended  to  make  him  seem 
vacillating  and  ineffective  ;  all  helped  to  bring  about 
that  failure  which  has  made  his  six  months  of  com- 
mand in  Ireland  the  opprobrium  ever  since  of  his- 
torians. 

Even  when,  after  more  than  one  furiously  reproachful 
letter  from  the  queen,  and  after  his  army  had  been  re- 
cruited by  an  additional  force  of  two  thousand  men,  he 
at  last  started  for  the  north,  nothing  of  any  impor- 
tance happened.  He  and  Tyrone  held  an  amicable  and 
unwitnessed  conference  at  a  ford  of  the  little  river 
Lagan,  at  which  the  enemies  of  the  viceroy  did  not 
scruple  afterwards  to  assert  that  treason  had  been 
concocted.  What,  at  any  rate,  is  certain  is  that  Essex 
agreed  to  an  armistice,  which,  with  so  overwhelm- 
ing a  force  at  his  own  disposal,  naturally  awakened 
no  little  anger  and  astonishment.  Tyrone's  personal 
courtesy  evidently  produced  a  strong  effect  upon  the 


210  .  THE   ESSEX  FAILURE. 

other  earl.  They  were  old  acquaintances,  and  Tyrone 
was  no  doubt  able  to  place  his  case  in  strong  relief. 
Essex,  too,  had  that  generosity  of  mind  which  made 
him  inconveniently  open  to  expostulation,  and  he  knew 
probably  well  enough  that  the  wrongs  of  which 
Tyrone  complained  were  far  from  imaginary  ones. 

Another  and  a  yet  more  furious  letter  from  the  queen 
startled  him  for  his  own  safety.  Availing  himself  of  a 
permission  he  had  brought  with  him  to  return  should 
occasion  seem  to  require  it,  he  left  the  command  in 
the  hands  of  subordinates,  flew  to  Dublin,  and  em- 
barked immediately  for  England.  What  befel  him 
upon  his  arrival  is  familiar  to  every  school  child,  and 
the  relation  of  it  must  not  be  allowed  to  divert  us 
from  following  the  further  course  of  events  in  Ireland. 


CINERARY    URN. 

{From  a  Tutnulus  near  Dublin. 


XXX. 

END   OF  THE   TYRONE   REBELLION. 

A  VERY  different  man  from  the  chivalrous  and 
quixotic  Essex  now  took  the  reins.  Charles  Blount, 
Lord  Mountjoy,  had  expected  to  be  sent  to  Ireland 
when  Essex  had  suddenly  been  appointed  with 
ampler  powers  and  a  more  extended  consequence, 
and  the  disappointment  had  caused  him  to  follow 
the  course  of  that  ill-starred  favourite  with  ill-con- 
cealed jealousy  to  its  tragic  end. 

Mountjoy  was  himself  a  man  of  cold,  clear-sighted, 
self-seeking  temperament.  In  almost  all  English 
histories  dealing  with  this  period  his  steadiness  and 
solid  unshowy  qualities  are  contrasted  with  Essex's 
flightiness  and  failure,  to  the  natural  disadvantage  of 
the  latter.  This,  however,  is  not  perhaps  quite  the 
last  word  upon  the  matter,  and  it  is  only  fair  to  Essex 
that  this  should  be  realized. 

No  master  hand  has  as  yet  made  this  special  portion 
of  Irish  history  his  own.  When  he  does  so — if  the 
keen  edge  of  his  perceptions,  that  is  to  say,  has  not 
been  dimmed  by  too  strong  an  earlier  prepossession 
— we  shall  perhaps  learn  that  the  admitted  failure  of 
Essex,  so  disastrous  to  himself,  was  more  honour- 
able than  the  admitted  and  the  well-rewarded  success 


CAPTURE  OF  THE  EARL  OF  ORMOND  BY  THE  O  MORES. 

{From  the  "  Pacata  Hibernia,"  of  Sir  G.  Carew.) 

I.  Ormond  and  his  followers  ;   2.  Rebel  horse  and  foot  ;  3.  Rebels  concealed  in 
woods  ;  4. 


SUCCESS   OF  MOUNTJOY.  213 

of  Mountjoy.  The  situation,  as  every  English  leader 
soon  found,  was  one  that  admitted  of  no  possible 
fellowship  between  two  alternatives,  success  and 
pity  ;  between  the  commonest  and  most  elementary 
dictates  of  humanity,  and  the  approval  of  the  queen 
and  her  Council.  There  was  but  one  method  by  "^ 
which  a  success  could  be  assured,  and  this  was  the  . 
method  which  Mountjoy  now  pushed  relentlessly, 
and  from  which  Essex's  more  sensitively  attuned 
nature  evidently  shrank.  The  enemies  it  was  neces- 
sary to  annihilate  were  not  so  much  Tyrone's 
soldiers,  as  the  poor,  the  feeble,  the  helpless,  the  old, 
the  women,  and  the  little  children.  Famine — oddly 
called  by  Edward  III.  the  "gentlest  of  war's  hand- 
maids " — was  here  the  only  certain,  perhaps  the 
only  possible  agent.  By  it,  and  by  it  alone,  the  germs 
of  insurrection  could  be  stamped  out  and  blighted  as 
it  were  at  their  very  birth. 

There  was  no  further  shrinking  either  from  its 
application.  Mountjoy  established  military  stations 
at  different  points  in  the  north,  and  proceeded  to 
demolish  everything  that  lay  between  them.  With  a 
deliberation  which  left  little  to  be  desired  he  made 
his  soldiers  destroy  every  living  speck  of  green  that 
was  to  be  seen,  burn  every  roof,  and  slaughter  every 
beast  which  could  not  be  conveniently  driven  into 
camp.  With  the  aid  of  Sir  George  Carew,  who 
enthusiastically  endorsed  his  policy,  and  has  left  us 
a  minute  account  of  their  proceedings,  they  swept 
the  country  before  them.  The  English  columns 
moved  steadily  from  point  to  point,  establishing  them- 
selves wherever  they  went,  in  strongly  fortified  out- 


214     END   OF    THE    TYRONE   REBELLION, 

posts,  from  which  points  flying  detachments  were  sent 
to  ravage  all  the  intermediate  districts.  The  ground 
was  burnt  to  the  very  sod  ;  all  harvest  utterly  cleared 
away  ;  starvation  in  its  most  grisly  forms  again  began 
to  stalk  the  land  ;  the  people  perished  by  tens  of  thou- 
sands, and  the  tales  told  by  eye-witnesses  of  what 
they  themselves  had  seen  at  this  time  an^  too  sickening 
to  be  allowed  needlessly  to  blacken  these  pages. 

As  a  policy  nothing,  however,  could  be  more  bril- 
liantly successful.  At  the  arrival  of  Mountjoy  the 
English  power  in  Ireland  was  at  about  the  lowest 
ebb  it  ever  reached  under  the  Tudors.  Ormond, 
the  Lieutenant-General  of  the  kingdom,  had  recently 
been  taken  captive  by  the  O'Mores  in  Leinster,  by 
whom  he  was  held  for  an  enormous  ransom.  Success, 
with  all  its  glittering  train,  seemed  to  have  gone 
bodily  over  to  Tyrone.  There  was  hardly  a  town  in 
the  whole  island  that  remained  in  the  hands  of  the 
Deputy.  Before  Mountjoy  left  all  this  was  simply 
reversed.  Not  only  had  the  royal  power  regained 
everything  that  had  been  snatched  froin  it,  but  from 
sea  to  sea  it  stood  upon  a  far  firmer  and  stronger  basis 
than  it  had  ever  done  before. 

Gradually,  as  the  area  over  which  the  power  of  the 
Deputy  and  his  able  assistant  grew  wider  and  wider, 
that  of  the  Tyrone  fell  away  and  faded.  "  The  con- 
sequence of  an  Irish  chieftain  above  all  others," 
observes  Leland  most  weightily,  "  depended  upon 
opinion."  A  true  success,  that  is  to  say,  of  which  the 
gleaming  plumes  and  trophies  were  not  immediately 
visible,  would  have  been  far  more  disastrous  than  a 
real  failure  which  could  have  been  gilded  over  with  a 


ARRIVAL    OF  SPANIARDS.  215 

little  delusive  gleam  of  triumph.  There  was  no  gleams, 
real  or  imaginary,  now.  Tyrone  was  fast  coming  to 
the  end  of  his  resources.  Surrender  or  starvation 
were  staring  him  with  ugly  insistence  in  the  face. 
The  war,  in  fact,  was  on  the  point  of  dying  out  from 
sheer  exhaustion,  when  a  new  element  came  to 
infuse  momentary  courage  into  the  breasts  of  the 
insurgents.  Fifty  Spanish  ships,  with  Don  Juan 
d'Aguilar  and  three  thousand  soldiers  on  board,  sailed 
into  Kinsale  harbour,  where  they  proceeded  to  dis- 
embark and  to  occupy  the  town. 

The  instant  the  news  of  this  landing  reached 
Mountjoy,  he,  with  characteristic  vigour,  hurried 
south  with  every  soldier  he  could  collect,  so  as  to 
cut  off  the  new  arrivals  before  their  allies  had 
time  to  .appear.  Not  a  moment  was  lost.  The 
Spaniards  had  landed  on  the  20th  of  September,  1601, 
and  by  the  23rd  the  first  English  soldiers  appeared 
before  the  town,  and  before  the  end  of  the  month 
Mountjoy  and  Carew  had  concentrated  every  man 
they  had  in  Ireland  around  Kinsale. 

Tyrone  and  O'Donnell  also  hurried  south,  but  their 
progress  was  slower,  and  when  they  arrived  they 
found  their  allies  closely  besieged  on  all  sides.  Taking 
advantage  of  a  frost,  which  had  made  the  bogs  pas- 
sable, O'Donnell  stole  round  the  English  forces  and 
joined  another  party  of  Spaniards  who  had  just 
effected  a  landing  at  Castlehaven.  All  Kerry  was  now 
up  in  arms,  under  two  local  chiefs,  O'Sullivan  Beare 
and  O'Driscoll,  The  struggle  had  resolved  itself  into 
the  question  which  side  could  hold  out  longest.  The 
English  had  the  command  of  the  sea,  but  were  the 


2l6  END   OF   THE    TYRONE  REBELLION. 

Spanish  fleet  to  return  their  position  would  become  to 
the  last  degree  perilous.  The  game  for  Tyrone  to 
play  was  clearly  a  waiting  one.  The  Spaniards  in 
Kinsale  were  weary  however  of  their  position,  and 
urged  him  to  try  and  surprise  the  English  camp. 
Reluctantly,  and  against  his  own  judgment,  he  con- 
sented. The  surprise  failed  utterly.  Information  of 
it  had  already  reached  Carew.  The  English  were 
under  arms,  and  after  a  short  struggle  Tyrone's  men 
gave  way.  Twelve  hundred  were  killed,  and  the  rest 
fled  in  disorder.  The  Spaniards  thereupon  surrendered 
Kinsale,  and  were  allowed  to  re-embark  for  Spain  ; 
many  of  the  Irish,  including  O'Donnell,  accompanying 
them. 

This  was  practically  the  end.  Tyrone  retreated  to 
the  north,  collecting  the  remnants  of  his  array  as  he 
went.  Carew  went  south  to  wreak  a  summary  ven- 
geance upon  O'Sullivan  Beare,  and  the  other  Kerry 
insurgents,  while  Mountjoy,  following  in  the  wake  of 
Tyrone,  hemmed  him  gradually  further  and  further 
north,  repeating  at  the  same  time  that  wasting  process 
which  had  already  been  only  too  brilliantly  successful. 

Tyrone  had  wit  enough  to  see  that  the  game  was 
played  out.  On  the  other  hand,  Mountjoy  was  eager 
to  bring  the  war  to  an  end  before  the  queen's  death, 
now  hourly  expected.  Terms  were  accordingly  come 
to.  The  earl  made  his  submission,  and  agreed  to 
relinquish  the  title  of  O'Neill,  and  to  abjure  for  ever 
all  alliances  with  foreign  powers  or  with  any  of  the 
enemies  of  the  Crown.  In  return  he  was  to  receive  a 
full  pardon  for  himself  and  his  followers,  and  all  his 
titles  and  lands  were  to  be  confirmed  to  him. 


SUBMISSION  OF   TYRONE.  219 

Two  days  after  this  the  queen's  death  was  an- 
nounced. We  are  told  that  Tyrone,  upon  hearing  of 
it,  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears.  As  he  had  been  in  arms 
against  her  up  to  a  week  before,  it  can  scarcely  have 
been  a  source  of  very  poignant  anguish.  Probably  he 
felt  that  had  he  guessed  the  imminence  of  the  event 
he  might  have  made  better  terms. 


TARA  BROOCH. 


XXXI. 


THE   FLIGHT    OF   THE   EARLS. 


This  was  the  last  serious  attempt  on  the  part  of 
any  individual  Irish  chieftain  to  rise  against  the  power 
of  England.  The  next  rebellion  of  which  we  shall 
hear  arose  from  perfectly  different  causes,  and  was 
general  rather  than  individual,  grew  indeed  before  its 
conclusion  to  the  larger  and  more  imposing  dimen- 
sions of  a  civil  war. 

In  one  respect  this  six  years'  struggle  was  less  pro- 
ductive of  results  than  either  of  the  two  previous  ones. 
At  the  end  of  it,  Tyrone  was  still  Tyrone ;  still 
the  first  of  Irish  subjects  ;  his  earldom  and  his  ances- 
tral possessions  were  still  his.  Nay,  on  crossing  a  few 
months  later  to  England,  and  presenting  himself  to 
the  English  Court,  he  was  graciously  received  by  the 
new  king,  and  seemed  at  first  to  stand  in  all  respects 
as  if  no  rebellion  had  been  planned  by  him,  or  so 
nearly  carried  to  a  successful  issue. 

This  state  of  things  was  a  source,  as  may  readily  be 
conceived,  of  boundless  rage  to  every  English  officer 
and  official  who  had  taken  part  in  the  late  campaign. 
To  see  "  that  damnable  rebel  Tyrone  "  apparently  in 
hieh  honour  caused   them   to  raee  and   enash   their 


TYRONE  S  ENEMIES.  221 

teeth.  "How  did  I  labour,"  cries  one  of  them,  "  for 
that  knave's  destruction  !  I  adventured  perils  by  sea 
and  land  ;  went  near  to  starving ;  eat  horseflesh  in 
Munster,  and  all  to  quell  that  man,  who  now  smileth 
in  peace  at  those  who  did  hazard  their  lives  to  destroy 
him  !  " 

Sheriffs,  judges,  commissioners,  all  the  new  officials 
who  now  began  to  hurry  to  the  north,  shared  in 
this  sentiment,  and  all  had  their  eyes  set  in  wrathful 
animosity  upon  Tyrone,  all  were  bent  in  finding  him 
out  in  some  new  treason.  That  after  all  that  had 
happened  he  should  end  his  days  in  peace  and  honour 
was  not  inconceivable  merely,  but  revolting.  He 
himself  complained  about  this  time  that  he  could  not 
"drink  a  full  carouse  of  sack  but  the  State  in  a  few 
hours  was  advertised  thereof'"'  It  was,  in  fact,  an  impos- 
sible situation.  Tyrone  was  now  sixty-two,  and  would 
have  been  willing  enough  therefore,  in  all  probability, 
to  rest  and  be  thankful.  It  was  impossible,  he  found, 
for  him  to  do  so.  He  was  harassed  by  spies,  plunged 
into  litigation  with  regard  to  his  seignorial  rights,  and 
whatever  case  was  tried  the  lawyers  invariably  found 
for  his  antagonists.  Rory  O'Donnell,  a  brother  of 
Red  Hugh, who  had  been  created  Earl  of  Tyrconnel  by 
James,  was  in  a  like  case.  Both  were  regarded  with 
detestation  by  every  official  in  Ireland  ;  both  had  not 
long  before  had  a  price  set  on  their  heads  ;  both,  it 
was  resolved  by  all  in  authority,  would,  sooner  or 
later,  therefore,  begin  to  rebel  again. 

Whether  they  did  so  or  not  has  never  been  satis- 
factorily decided.  The  evidence  on  the  whole  goes  to 
prove  that  they  did  not.     The  air,  however,  was  thick 


222  THE   FLIGHT   OF   THE   EARLS. 

just  then  with  plots,  and  in  1607,  a  mysterious  and 
anonymous  document,  of  which  Lord  Howth  was 
reported  to  be  the  author,  was  found  in  the  Dublin 
Council  Chamber,  which  hinted  darkly  at  conspira- 
cies and  perils  of  various  kinds  to  the  State,  in  which 
conspiracies  Tyrone,  it  was  equally  darkly  hinted, 
was  in  some  manner  or  other  involved. 

It  was  rather  a  poor  plot,  still  it  served  its  turn. 
Tyrone  received  warning  from  his  friends  abroad  that 
he  was  about  to  be  arrested,  and  so  serious  was  the 
peril  deemed  that  a  vessel  was  specially  sent  by  them 
to  bring  him  away  in  safety.  He  at  once  communi- 
cated with  Tyrconnel,  and  after  a  short  consultation 
the  two  Earls  with  their  families  resolved  to  take 
advantage  of  the  opportunity  and  depart  at  once. 
This  at  the  time,  and  indeed  generally,  has  been 
construed  into  a  proof  of  their  guilt.  It  may  have 
been  so,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  just  as  well 
not  have  been.  Had  their  innocence  been  purer 
than  alabaster  or  whiter  than  the  driven  snow  they 
were  probably  well  advised  under  existing  circum- 
stances in  not  remaining  to  take  their  trial. 

Right  or  wrong,  with  good  reason  or  without  good 
reason,  they  went,  and  after  various  wanderings 
reached  Rome,  where  they  were  received  with  no 
little  honour.  Neither,  however,  long  survived  their 
exile.  Tyrconnel  died  the  following  year,  and  Tyrone 
some  eight  years  later,  a  sad,  blind,  broken-hearted 
man. 

Nothing  could  have  been  more  convenient  for  the 
Government  than  this  departure.  Under  the  circum- 
stances, it  meant,  of  course,  a   forfeiture  of  all  their 


FORFEITURE   OF   THE  EARL'S   ESTATES.       223 

estates.  Had  the  extent  of  territory  which  personally 
belonged  to  the  two  exiles  alone  been  confiscated, 
the  proceeding,  no  doubt,  would  have  been  per- 
fectly legitimate.  Whatever  had  led  to  it,  the  fact 
of  their  flight  and  consequent  renouncement  of 
allegiance  was  undeniable,  and  the  loss  of  their 
estates  followed  almost  as  a  matter  of  course.  A 
far  more  sweeping  measure  than  this,  however,,  was 
resolved  upon.  The  lawyers,  under  the  direction  of 
the  Dublin  Government,  so  contrived  matters  as  to 
make  the  area  forfeited  by  the  two  earls  cover  no  less 
a  space  than  six  entire  counties,  all  of  which  were 
escheated  to  the  Crown,  regardless  of  the  rights  of 
a  vast  number  of  smaller  tenants  and  sub-proprietors 
against  whom  no  plea  of  rebellion,  recently  at  all 
events  could  be  urged  ;  a  piece  of  injustice  destined, 
as  will  be  seen,  to  bear  tragic  fruit  a  generation  later. 

The  plan  upon  which  this  new  plantation  was 
carried  out  was  projected  with  the  utmost  care  by  the 
lawyers,  the  Irish  Government,  and  the  king  himself. 
The  former  plantations  in  Munster  were  an  acknow- 
ledged failure,  the  reason  assigned  being  the  huge  size 
of  the  grants  made  to  the  undertakers.  Many  of 
these  resided  in  England,  and  merely  drew  their 
rents,  allowing  Irish  tenants  to  occupy  the  land. 
This  mistake  was  now  to  be  avoided.  Only  tracts 
that  could  be  managed  by  a  resident  owner  were  to 
be  granted,  and  from  these  the  natives  were  to  be 
entirely  drawn.  "  As  well,"  it  was  gravely  stated, 
"  for  their  greater  security,  as  to  preserve  the  purity 
of  the  English  language." 

The    better  to    ensure    this  important  result   mar- 


224  ^^^   FLIGHT   OF   THE   EARLS. 

riages  were  strictly  forbidden  between  the  native 
Irish  and  the  settlers,  and  in  order  to  avoid  that 
ever-formidable  danger  the  former  were  ordered  to 
remove  themselves  and  their  belongings  bodily  into 
certain  reserved  lands  set  apart  for  them. 

The  person  who  took  the  most  prominent  part  in 
this  undertaking  was  the  well-known  Sir  John  Davis, 
a  distinguished  lawyer  and  writer,  who  has  himself 
left  us  a  minute  account  of  his  own  and  his 
colleagues'  proceedings.  That  those  proceedings 
should  have  aroused  some  slight  excitement  and 
dismay  amongst  the  dispossessed  owners  was  not, 
perhaps,  astonishing,  even  to  those  engaged  in  it. 
In  some  instances,  the  proprietors  even  went  the 
length  of  bringing  lawyers  from  Dublin,  to  prove 
that  their  estates  could  not  legally  be  forfeited 
through  the  attainder  of  the  earls,  and  to  plead,  more- 
over, the  king's  recent  proclamation  which  undertook 
to  secure  to  the  inhabitants  their  possessions.  In  reply 
to  this,  Sir  John  Davis  and  the  other  commissioners 
issued  another  proclamation.  "  We  published,"  he 
says,  "  by  proclamation  in  each  county,  what  lands 
were  to  be  granted  to  British  undertakers,  what  to 
servitors,  and  what  to  natives,  to  the  end  that  the 
natives  should  remove  from  the  precincts  allotted  to 
the  Britons,  whereupon  a  clear  plantation  is  to  be 
made  of  English  and  Scottish  without  Irish."  With 
regard  to  the  rights  of  the  king  he  is  still  more  em- 
phatic. "  Not  only,"  he  says,  "  his  Majesty  may  take 
this  course  lawfully,  but  he  is  bound  in  conscience  to 
do  so." 

These  arguments,  and  probably  still  more  the  evident 


NOT    UNSATISFIED   IN  REASON. 


225 


uselessness  of  any  resistance,  seem  to  have  had  their 
effect.  The  discomfited  owners  submitted  sullenly, 
and  withdrew  to  the  tracts  allotted  to  them.  In 
Sir  John  Davis'  own  neat  and  incisive  words,  "  The 
natives  seemed  not  unsatisfied  in  reason,  though  they 
remained  in  their  passions  discontented,  being  grieved 
to  leave  their  possessions  to  strangers,  which  they  had 
so  long  after  their  manner  enjoyed." 


DOORWAY   OF   ST.    CAEMIN'S    CHURCH,    INISMAIN,    ARAN    ISLES. 


XXXII. 

THE   FIRST   CONTESTED   ELECTION. 

In  1613,  it  was  resolved  by  the  Government  to 
summon  an  Irish  Parliament,  for  the  purpose  of 
giving  legality  to  their  recent  proceedings  in  Ulster, 
and  also  to  pass  an  Act  of  formal  attainder  upon  the 
two  exiled  earls. 

The  great  difficulty  felt  by  the  executive  was  how  to 
secure  an  adequate  Protestant  majority.  Even  after 
the  recent  large  introduction  of  Protestants  the  great 
mass  of  the  freeholders,  and  nearly  all  the  burgesses 
in  the  towns  were  still  Roman  Catholics.  In  the 
Upper  House,  indeed,  the  nineteen  Protestant  bishops 
and  five  temporal  lords  who  were  Protestant,  made 
matters  safe.  The  House  of  Commons,  therefore, 
was  the  rub.  Carew  and  Sir  John  Davis  set  their 
wits  energetically  to  this  problem.  The  new  towns, 
or  rather  agricultural  forts,  in  Ulster  were  all  con- 
verted into  Corporations,  and  each  given  the  power 
of  returning  two  members.  The  Pale  and  the  Lein- 
ster  towns,  thou-gh  loyal,  were  nearly  all  Catholic.  In 
the  west,  except  at  Athlone,  there  was  "  no  hope," 
the  president  reported,  "of  any  Protestants."  From 
some  of  the  other  garrison  towns  better  thingfs  were 


THE   SPEAKER — PROTESTANT   OR    CATHOLIC.      227 

hoped  for,  still  there  was  not  a  little  alarm  on  the  part 
of  the  Government  that  the  numbers  might  still  come 
short. 

On  the  other  side  the  Catholics  were  equally  alive 
to  the  situation,  and  equally  keen  to  secure  a  triumph. 
A  belief  prevailed,  too,  all  over  Ireland,  that  the  object 
of   summoning    this    Parliament    was    to    carry    out 
some  sweeping  act  of  confiscation,  and  this  naturally 
added  to  the  excitement.     For  the  first  time  in  Irish 
history    a    genuinely  contested    election   took  place. 
Both  parties  strained  every  nerve,  both  felt  their  future 
interests  to  depend  upon  the  struggle.     When  at  last 
all  the  members  were  collected  it  was  found  that  the 
Government  had  a  majority,  though  a  narrow  one,  of 
twenty- four.     Barely,  however,  had  Parliament  assem- 
bled, before  a  violent  quarrel  broke  out  over  the  elec- 
tion of  a  speaker  ;  the  Catholic  party  denouncing  the 
irregularity  by  means  of  which  many  of  the  elections 
had  been  carried,  and  refusing  therefore  to  consider 
themselves  bound  by  the  decision  of  the  majority.    Sir 
John  Davis  had  been  elected  speaker  by  the  suppor- 
ters of  the  Government,   but,  during  the  absence  of 
the  latter  in  the  division  lobby,  the  recusants  placed 
their  own  man.  Sir  John   Everard,   in   the  chair,  and 
upon  the  return  of  the  others  a  hot  scuffle  ensued  be- 
tween the  supporters  of  the  two  Sir  Johns,  each  side 
vehemently  supporting  the  claims  of  its  own  candidate. 
In  the  end,  "  Mr.  Treasurer  and  Mr.  Marshall,  two 
gentlemen  of  the  best  quality,"  according  to  a  "  Pro- 
testant declaration"   sent  to  England   of   the  whole 
occurrence,  "  took   Sir  John   Davis  by  the  arms,  and 
lifting  him  from  the  ground,  placed  him  in  the  chair 


228  THE   FIRST   CONTESTED   ELECTION. 

upon  Sir  John  Everard's  lap,  requiring  the  latter  to 
come  forth  of  the  chair  ;  which,  he  obstinately  re- 
fusing, Mr.  Treasurer,  the  Master  of  the  Ordinance, 
and  others,  whose  places  were  next  the  chair,  laid 
their  hands  gently  upon  him,  and  removed  him  out 
of  the  chair,  and  placed  Sir  John  Davis  therein." 

The  gravity  with  which  we  are  assured  of  the  gentle- 
ness of  these  proceedings  is  delightful.  The  recusants, 
with  Sir  John  Everard  at  their  head,  departed  we  are 
further  told  "  in  most  contentious  manner  "  out  of  the 
House.  Being  asked  why  they  did  not  return,  they 
replied  that  "  Those  within  the  House  are  no  House, 
and  the  Speaker  is  no  Speaker ;  but  we  are  the  House, 
and  Sir  John  Everard  is  our  Speaker."  ^ 

Not  being  able  to  be  otherwise  settled,  the  quarrel 
was  at  last  referred  to  the  king,  and  representa- 
tives of  both  sides  went  to  England  to  plead  their 
cause.  In  the  end  twelve  of  the  new  elections  were 
found  to  have  been  so  illegally  carried  that  they  had 
perforce  to  be  cancelled,  but  Sir  John  Davis  was  at 
the  same  time  confirmed  in  the  Speakership. 

After  this  delay  the  House  at  last  got  to  work.  A 
formal  Act  of  attainder  was  passed  upon  Tyrone, 
Tyrconnel,  and  some  of  the  other  Ulster  landowners. 
Every  portion  of  Ireland  was  next  made  into  shireland, 
and  the  last  remnants  of  the  Brehon  law  abolished. 
Upon  the  other  hand,  the  statutes  of  Kilkenny  was  at 
length  and  finally  repealed.  Henceforth  English  and 
Irish  were  alike  to  be  admitted  to  plead  their  own 
cause  in  the  courts  of  law. 

'  Lodges,  "  Desiderata  Curiosa  Hibernica,"  pp.  410-41 1. 


XXXIII. 

OLD   AND   NEW   OWNERS. 

The  zeal  for  Irish  colonization  had  by  no  means 
subsided  after  the  Ulster  settlement  had  been  estab- 
lished ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  the  favourite  panacea 
of  the  hour,  especially  in  the  eyes  of  the  king  himself. 
After  one  such  resounding  success,  why,  it  was  asked, 
not  extend  so  evident  a  blessing  to  the  rest  of  Ireland  ? 
"A  commission  to  inquire  into  defective  titles"  was 
set  on  foot,  whose  duty  it  was  to  collect  evidence  as  to 
the  condition  of  estates,  and  to  inquire  into  the  titles 
of  owners.  The  pipe  rolls  in  Dublin  and  the  patents, 
kept  in  the  Tower  of  London  were  alike  eagerly  ran- 
sacked, and  title  flaws  found  to  be  discoverable  with  the 
most  delightful  facility.  There  was  a  strong  feeling  too 
about  this  time  in  England  that  something  good  was 
to  be  made  of  Ireland.  When  tens  of  thousands  of 
acres  were  to  be  had  almost  for  the  asking,  who  could 
be  so  slow  or  so  mean-spirited  as  to  hang  back  from 
doing  so. 

Something  like  a  regular  stampede  of  men  ambi- 
tious to  call  themselves  undertakers,  began  to  cross 
over  from  the  larger  to  the  smaller  island.  Nor 
was  the  Government  anxious  to  check  this  spirited 


230  OLD   AND   NEW   OWNERS. 

impulse.  In  Wexford  alone  over  60,000  acres  had 
been  discovered  by  the  lawyers  to  belong  to  the 
king,  and  of  these  a  large  portion  were  now  settled 
with  English  undertakers.  In  Longford,  Leitrim, 
Wicklow,  and  many  other  parts  of  Leinster,  it  was 
the  same.  Even  where  the  older  proprietors  were 
not  dispossessed  heavy  fines  were  levied  in  return 
for  fresh  grants.  No  proof  of  recent  surrender  or 
former  agreement  was  allowed  to  count,  and  so  in- 
geniously was  the  whole  scheme  carried  out,  and  so 
inextricable  was  the  jungle  of  legal  technicalities  in 
which  it  was  involved,  that  what  in  reality  was  often 
sheer  confiscations  sounded  like  the  most  equitable  of 
judicial  arrangements. 

The  case  of  the  Connaught  landowners  is  particu- 
larly characteristic,  and  as  space  dwindles  rapidly, 
may  serve  as  an  example  of  the  rest.  Nearly  all 
the  Connaught  gentry,  native  and  Norman  alike, 
had  surrendered  their  estates  either  to  Elizabeth 
or  to  her  father,  and  had  received  them  back  again 
upon  new  terms.  Legal  transfer,  however,  was  so 
little  understood,  and  the  times  were  so  rough  and 
wild,  that  few  had  received  patents,  and  title-deeds 
were  all  but  unknown.  In  James  I.'s  reign  this 
omission  was  rectified  and  patents  duly  made  out, 
for  which  the  landowners  paid  a  sum  little  short  of 
i^30,ooo,  equal  to  nearly  ^300,000  at  the  present  day. 
These  new  patents,  however,  by  an  oversight  of  the 
clerks  in  Chancery,  were  neglected  to  be  enrolled,  and 
upon  this  plea  fresh  ones  were  called  for,  and  fresh 
fees  had  to  be  paid  by  the  landowners.  Further  it  was 
announced  that  owinc:    to  the  omission  —  one  over 


DISAPPOINTMENT   OF   THE    CATHOLICS.         23I 

which  the  owners,  it  is  clear,  had  no  control — all  the 
titles  had  become  defective,  and  all  the  lands  had 
lapsed  to  the  Crown.  The  other  three  provinces  having 
by  this  time  received  plantations,  the  Connaught 
landowners  were  naturally  not  slow  to  perceive  the  use 
that  might  be  made  of  so  awkward  a  technical  flaw. 
To  appeal  against  the  manifest  injustice  of  the  decision 
was  of  little  avail,  but  a  good  round  sum  of  money 
into  the  king's  own  hands  was  known  to  rarely  come 
amiss.  They  agreed  accordingly  to  offer  him  the 
same  sum  that  would  have  fallen  to  his  share  had  the 
plantations  been  carried  out.  This  was  accepted  and 
another  i^  10,000  paid,  and  the  evil  day  thus  for  a 
while,  but  only,  as  will  be  seen,  for  a  while  averted, 

Charles's  accession  awakened  a  good  many  hopes 
in  Ireland,  the  Catholic  party  especially  flattering 
themselves  that  a  king  who  was  himself  married  to 
one  of  their  faith  would  be  likely  to  show  some  favour 
to  his  Catholic  subjects.  In  this  they  found  their 
mistake,  and  an  attempt  to  open  a  Catholic  college  in 
Dublin  was  speedily  put  down  by  force.  In  other 
directions  a  certain  amount  of  leniency  was,  however, 
extended  to  recusants,  and  Lord  Falkland,  who  a 
few  years  before  had  succeeded  Sir  Oliver  St.  John  as 
deputy,  was  a  man  of  conspicuous  moderation  and 
tolerance.  In  1629,  however,  he  resigned,  worn  out 
like  so  many  others  before  and  after  him  by  the  diffi- 
culties with  which  he  had  to  contend,  and  not  long 
afterwards  a  man  of  very  different  temperament  and 
widely  different  theories  of  government  came  to 
assume  the  reins. 


XXXIV. 

STRAFFORD. 

In  1632,  Went  worth — better  known  as  Strafford — 
arrived  in  Ireland,  prepared  to  carry  out  his  motto  of 
"  Thorough."  Only  three  years  before,  he  had  been 
one  of  the  foremost  orators  in  the  struggle  for  the 
Petition  of  Right.  The  dagg-er  of  Fenton  had  turned 
him  from  an  impassioned  patriot  and  constitu- 
tionalist into  a  vehement  upholder  of  absolutism. 
His  revolt  had  been  little  more  than  a  mask  for  his 
hostility  to  the  hated  favourite  Buckingham,  and 
when  Buckingham's  murder  cleared  the  path  to  his 
ambition,  Wentworth  passed,  apparently  without  a 
struggle,  from  the  zealous  champion  of  liberty  to  the 
yet  more  zealous  champion  of  despotic  rule. 

He  arrived  in  Ireland  as  to  a  conquered  country, 
and  proceeded  promptly  to  act  upon  that  under- 
standing. His  chief  aim  was  to  show  that  a  parlia- 
ment, properly  managed,  could  be  made  not  a 
menace,  but  a  tool  in  the  hand  of  the  king.  With 
this  end  he  summoned  an  Irish  one  immediately 
upon  his  arrival,  and  so  managed  the  elections  that 
Protestants  and  Catholics  should  nearly  equally 
balance  one  another.     Upon  its  assembling,  he  ordered 


THOMAS   WENTWORTH,    EARL  OI'  STRAFFORD,    164I. 


234  STRAFFORD. 

peremptorily  that  a  subsidy  of  ^ioo,000,  to  cover  the 
debts  to  the  Crown,  should  be  voted.  There  would, 
he  announced,  be  a  second  session,  during  which 
certain  long-deferred  "  graces "  and  other  demands 
would  be  considered.  The  sum  was  obediently  voted, 
but  the  second  session  never  came.  The  parliament 
was  abruptly  dissolved  by  the  deputy,  and  did  not 
meet  again  for  nearly  four  years. 

The  Connaught  landlords  were  the  next  whom  he 
took  in  hand.  We  have  seen  in  the  last  chapter  that 
they  had  recently  paid  a  large  sum  to  the  Crown,  in 
order  to  ward  off  the  dangers  of  a  plantation.  This 
did  not  satisfy  Wentworth.  Their  titles  were  again 
called  into  question.  He  swept  down  in  person  into 
the  province,  with  the  commissioners  of  plantations 
at  his  heels ;  discovered,  to  his  own  complete  satisfac- 
tion, that  a//  the  titles  of  all  the  five  western  counties 
were  defective,  and  that,  as  a  natural  consequence,  all 
lapsed  to  the  Crown.  The  juries  of  Mayo,  Sligo, 
and  Roscommon  were  overawed  into  submission,  but 
the  Galway  jury  were  obstinate,  and  refused  to  dis- 
possess the  proprietors,  Wentworth  thereupon  took 
them  back  with  him  to  Dublin,  summoned  them 
before  the  Court  of  the  Castle  Chamber,  where  they 
were  sentenced  to  pay  a  fine  of  i^4,ooo  each,  and  the 
sheriff  ^lOOO,  and  to  remain  in  prison  until  they  had 
done  so.  The  unfortunate  sheriff  died  in  prison. 
Lord  Clanricarde,  the  principal  Galway  landlord,  died 
also  shortly  afterwards,  of  anxiety  and  mortification. 
The  others  submitted,  and  were  let  off  by  the  trium- 
phant deputy  with  the  surrender,  in  some  cases,  of 
large  portions  of  their  estates,  in  others  of  heavy  fines. 


HIS   IRON  RULE.  233 

By  these  means,  and  others  too  long  to  enter  into 
here,  he  contrived  to  raise  the  annual  Irish  revenue  to 
a  surplus  of  ;^6o,ooo,  with  part  of  which  he  proceeded 
to  set  on  foot  and  equip  an  army  for  the  king  of 
10,000  foot  and  1,000  horse,  ready  to  be  marched 
at  a  moment's  notice.  This  part  of  the  programme 
was  intended  as  a  menace  less  against  Ireland  than 
England.  Charles  was  to  be  absolute  in  both  islands, 
and,  to  be  so,  his  Irish  subjects  were  to  help  him  to 
coerce  his  English  ones. 

Let  us,  however,  be  just.  Strafford  was  a  born 
tyrant — worse,  he  was  the  champion  of  an  absolutism 
of  the  most  odious  type  conceivable,  one  which,  if 
successful,  would  have  been  a  death-blow  to  English 
liberty.  But  he  was  also  a  born  ruler.  No  petty 
tyrants  flourished  under  his  sway.  His  hand  was 
like  iron  upon  the  plunderers,  the  pluralists,  the 
fraudulent  officials,  gorged  with  their  ill-gotten  booty 
What  he  did,  too,  he  did  well.  If  he  struck,  he  could 
also  protect.  He  ruthlessly  suppressed  the  infant 
woollen  trade,  believing  that  it  might  in  time  come 
to  be  a  rival  to  the  English  one,  but  he  was  the 
founder  of  the  linen  trade,  and  imported  Flemish 
weavers  to  teach  it,  and  the  best  flax-seed  to 
sow  in  the  fields.  He  cleared  the  sea  of  the  pirates 
who  swarmed  along  the  coasts,  and  had  recently 
burnt  the  houses  and  carried  off  the  inhabitants  of 
several  villages.  The  king's  authority  once  secured 
he  was  anxious  to  secure  to  the  mass  of  the  people. 
Catholic  as  well  as  Protestant,  a  just  and  impartial 
administration  of  the  law.  No  one  in  Ireland,  he 
was  resolved,  should  tyrannize  except  himself 


, JACOBUS   USSERJUS,   ARC HIEPISC OPUS    ARMACHANUS  , 
^  TOTIUS      HIBERNl;t    PRIMAS 

ii>uuicoi    6(.i/_c*.vrio'onToj,  orrorum.    maiuAU.in  conc^ciwnao/fnaiieii/ 

]{cifi'mc\.    VicecoHc-lLiivs    Oxaniejifr  fjfuit  g 

J(U    by   George    B«Ager   in  J^ Dunjlans  Cl>i^ckrarJ.  injUnfircct      W AtarliaOSci^/it' 


HIS    TREATMENT   OF   THE   IRISH   CLERGY.      237 

He  and  Laud,  the  primate,  were  close  allies,  and 
both  were  bent  upon  bringing  the  Church  of  Ireland 
to  an  absolute  uniformity  with  that  of  England,  and, 
with  this  object,  Went  worth  set  a  Court  of  High  Com- 
mission to  work  to  root  out  the  Presbyterian  ministers 
and  to  suppress,  as  far  as  possible,  dissent.  The  Irish 
bishops  and  episcopalian  clergy  were,  with  hardly  an 
exception,  Low  Churchmen,  with  a  leaning  to  Calvin- 
ism, and,  upon  these  also  his  hand  was  heavy.  His 
regard  for  the  Church  by  no  means  stood  in  his  way 
either  in  his  dealings  with  individual  churchmen. 
He  treated  the  Primate  Ussher — one  of  the  most  vene- 
rated names  in  all  Irish  history — with  marked  con- 
tempt ;  he  rated  the  Bishop  of  Killaloe  upon  one 
occasion  like  a  dog,  and  told  him  that  "  he  deserved 
to  have  his  rochet  pulled  over  his  ears  ; "  boasting 
afterwards,  to  his  correspondent,  of  how  effectually  he 
had  "  warmed  his  old  sides." 

In  another  letter  to  Laud,  we  get  a  graphic  and 
rather  entertaining  account  of  his  dealings  with  Con- 
vocation. The  Lower  House,  it  seems,  had  appointed 
a  select  committee,  which  had  drawn  up  a  book  of 
canons  upon  the  lines  of  what  were  known  as  the 
"Nine  Articles  of  Lambeth."  Wentworth  was  furious. 
"  Instantly,"  he  says,  "  I  sent  for  Dean  Andrews,  that 
reverend  clerk,  who  sat,  forsooth,  in  the  chair  at  this 
committee,  and  required  him  to  bring  along  the 
aforesaid  book  of  canons  ;  this  he  obeyed,  .  .  .  but 
when  I  came  to  open  the  book,  I  confess  I  was  not 
so  much  moved  since  I  came  into  Ireland.  I  told 
him  certainly  not  a  Dean  of  Limerick,  but  an  Ana- 
nias had  sat  in  the  chair  at  that  committee,  and  sure 


238  STRAFFORD. 

I  was  that  Ananias  had  been  there  in  spirit  if  not  in 
body."  I 

The  unhappy  Ananias  naturally  submitted  at  once 
to  the  terrible  deputy,  and,  although  Archbishop 
Ussher  and  most  of  the  bishops  defended  the  attacked 
canons,  Wentworth  carried  his  point  by  a  sheer  exercise 
of  power.  Throwing  the  list  of  canons  already  drawn 
out  aside,  he  drew  up  another  of  his  own  composi- 
tion, and  forced  the  Convocation  to  accept  it.  "  There 
were  some  hot  spirits,  sons  of  thunder,  amongst  them," 
he  tells  Laud  boastfully,  "  who  moved  that  they 
should  petition  me  for  a  free  synod,  but,  in  fine,  they 
could  not  agree  among  themselves  who  should  put 
the  bell  about  the  cat's  neck,  and  so  this  likewise 
vanished."  ^  The  cat,  in  truth,  was  a  terrible  one  to 
bell! 

But  the  career  of  the  master  of  Ireland  was  nearing 
its  end.  By  the  beginning  of  1640  the  Scotch  were 
up  in  arms,  and  about  to  descend  in  force  upon 
England.  The  English  Puritans,  too,  were  assuming 
a  hostile  attitude.  Civil  war  was  upon  the  point  of 
breaking  out.  Charles  summoned  Wentworth  over 
in  hot  haste  from  Ireland,  and  it  was  decided  between 
them  that  the  newly-organized  Irish  forces  were  to 
be  promptly  employed  against  the  Scotch  rebels. 
With  this  purpose  Wentworth — now  with  the  long- 
desired  titles  of  Earl  of  Strafford  and  Lord -Lieu- 
tenant of  Ireland — hurried  back  to  make  the  final 
arrangements.  Fresh  subsidies  were  obtained  from 
the  ever-subservient  Irish  parliament ;  more  recruits 

'  Earl  of  Strafford's  "  Letters  and  Despatches,"  vol.  i.  p.  342. 
'  Ibid. 


HIS   EXECUTION. 


239 


were  hastily  summoned,  and  came  in  readily ;  the 
army  was  put  under  the  command  of  the  young 
Earl  of  Ormond,  and  Strafford  once  more  returned 
to  England.  He  did  so  only  to  find  all  his  calcula- 
tions upset.  A  treaty  had  been  made  in  his  absence 
with  the  Scots  ;  the  Long  Parliament  had  assembled, 
and  the  fast-gathering  storm  was  about  to  break  in 
thunder  over  his  own  head.  He  was  impeached. 
Witness  after  witness  poured  over  from  Ireland,  all 
eager  to  give  their  evidence.  Representatives  even 
of  the  much-aggrieved  Connaught  landlords — though 
their  wrongs  did  not  perhaps  count  for  much  in  the 
great  total — were  there  to  swell  the  tide.  He  was 
tried  for  high  treason,  condemned  and  executed.  In 
England  the  collapse  of  so  great  and  so  menacing 
a  figure  was  a  momentous  event.  In  Ireland  it 
must  have  seemed  as  the  very  fall  of  Lucifer  himself! 


SHRINE   OF  ST.    PATRICK'S  BELL. 


XXXV. 


'FORTY-ONE. 


Strafford's  fall  and  death  would  alone  have 
rendered  this  year,  1641,  a  memorable  one  in  Irish 
history.  Unhappily  it  was  destined  to  be  made  yet 
more  so  ;  few  years,  indeed,  in  that  long,  dark  bead- 
roll  are  perhaps  as  memorable,  both  from  what  it 
brought  forth  at  the  time,  and,  still  more,  from  what 
was  afterwards  to  follow  from  it. 

The  whole  country,  it  must  be  remembered,  was 
in  a  state  of  the  wildest  and  most  irrepressible 
excitement.  The  fall  of  such  a  ruler  as  Strafford — 
one  under  whose  iron  will  it  had  for  years  lain  as 
in  a  vice — would  alone  have  produced  a  consider- 
able amount  of  upheaval  and  confusion.  The  army 
collected  by  him,  and  mainly  recruited  by  Catholics, 
was  regarded  with  strong  disfavour  both  by  Irish  Pro- 
testants and  by  the  English  Parliament,  and  Charles, 
much  against  his  will,  had  been  forced  to  disband  it, 
and  the  arms  had  been  stored  in  Dublin  Castle.  The 
men,  however,  remained,  and  among  the  leading 
Irish  as  well  as  English  royalists  there  was  a  strong 
desire  that  they  should  be  kept  together,  so  as  to 
serve  if  required  in  the  fast  nearing  struggle. 


THE    CATHOLIC    RISING.  24I 

Nor  was  this  all.  Strafford's  persecution  of  the 
Presbyterians  had  done  its  work,  and  the  feeling 
between  them  and  the  Irish  Church  party  had  been 
greatly  embittered.  Amongst  the  Catholics,  too,  the 
most  loyal  even  of  the  gentry  had  been  terror-stricken 
by  his  confiscations.  No  one  knew  how  long  his 
property  would  remain  his  own,  or  upon  what  pre- 
tence it  might  not  next  be  taken  from  him.  Add  to 
these  the  long-gathering  passion  of  the  dispossessed 
clans  in  the  north,  and  that  floating  element  of  dis- 
affection always  ready  to  stir,  and  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  materials  for  a  rebellion  were  ready  laid, 
and  needed  only  a  spark  to  ignite  them. 

As  usually  happens  in  rebellions  the  plans  of  the 
more  prudent  were  thwarted  by  the  impetuosity  of  the 
more  violent  spirits.  While  Ormond,  Antrim,  and 
the  barons  of  the  Pale  were  communicating  with  the 
king,  and  considering  what  were  the  best  steps  to 
take,  a  plot  had  been  formed  without  them,  and  was 
now  upon  the  point  of  exploding. 

Two  men,  Rory  or  Roger  O'Moore,  one  of  the 
O'Moores  of  Leix,  and  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill,  a  con- 
nection of  the  Tyrones,  were  its  main  movers,  and 
were  joined  by  Lord  Maguire,  a  j^outh  of  about 
twenty-two,  Hugh  McMahon,  the  Bishop  of  Clogher, 
and  a  few  other  gentlemen,  belonging  chiefly  to  the 
septs  of  the  north.  The  plan  was  a  very  comprehen- 
sive one.  They  were  to  seize  Dublin  Castle,  which 
was  known  to  be  weakly  defended  ;  get  out  the  arms 
and  powder,  and  redistribute  them  to  the  disbanded 
troops ;  at  the  same  time,  seize  all  the  forts  and  gar- 
rison   towns    in   the    north  ;  turn  all    the    Protestant 


242  'FORTY-ONE. 

settlers  adrift — though  it  was  at  iirst  stipulated  with- 
out killing  or  otherwise  injuring  them — take  possession 
of  all  the  country  houses,  and  make  all  who  declined 
to  join  in  the  rising  prisoners. 

Never,  too,  was  plot  more  nearly  successful.  October 
the  23rd  was  the  day  fixed,  and  up  to  the  very  evening 
before  no  hint  of  what  was  intended  had  reached  the 
Lords  Justices.  By  the  merest  chance,  and  by  an  almost 
inconceivable  piece  of  carelessness  on  the  part  of  the 
conspirators,  it  was  divulged  to  a  man  called  Conolly, 
a  Presbyterian  convert,  who  went  straight  and  reported 
it  to  Sir  William  Parsons.  The  latter  at  first  declined  to 
believe  in  it,  but,  Conolly  persisting  in  his  story,  steps 
were  taken  to  strengthen  the  defences.  The  guard 
was  doubled  ;  Lord  Maguire  and  Hugh  McMahon 
were  arrested  at  daybreak  next  morning  ;  the  rest, 
finding  that  their  stroke  had  missed,  fled  with  their 
followers. 

If  this  part  of  the  rising  failed,  the  other  portions, 
unhappily,  were  only  too  successful.  The  same  day 
the  Protestant  settlers  in  Armagh  and  Tyrone,  un- 
suspicious of  any  danger,  were  suddenly  set  upon  by 
a  horde  of  armed  or  half-armed  men,  dragged  out 
of  their  houses,  stripped  to  the  skin,  and  driven, 
naked  and  defenceless,  into  the  cold.  No  one  dared 
to  take  them  in,  every  door  was  shut  in  their  faces, 
and  though  at  first  no  actual  massacre  seems  to  have 
been  intended,  hundreds  perished  within  the  first 
few  days  of  exposure,  or  fell  dead  by  the  roadside 
of  famine  and  exhaustion. 

Sir  Phelim  O'Neill — a  drunken  rufifian  for  whom 
even  the  most  patriotic  historian  finds  it  hard  to  say 


SIR    PHELTM   O'NEILL.  243 

a  redeeming  word — was  here  the  ringleader.  On  the 
same  day — the  23rd  of  October — he  got  possession 
of  the  fort  of  Charlemont,  the  strongest  position  in 
the  new  plantation,  by  inviting  himself  to  dinner 
with  Lord  Caulfield,  the  governor,  and  suddenly 
seizing  him  prisoner.  Dungannon,  Mountjoy,  and 
several  of  the  other  forts,  were  also  surprised  and  taken. 
Enniskillen,  however,  was  saved  by  its  governor,  Sir 
William  Cole,  and  Derry,  Coleraine,  and  Carrick- 
fergus,  had  also  time  fortunately  to  shut  their  gates, 
and  into  these  as  many  of  the  terrified  settlers  as 
could  reach  them  crowded. 

These  were  few,  however,  compared  to  those  who 
could  find  no  such  haven  of  refuge.  Sir  Phelim 
O'Neill,  mad  with  excitement,  and  intoxicated  with 
the  sudden  sense  of  power,  hounded  on  his  excited 
and  undisciplined  followers  to  commit  every  conceiv- 
able act  of  cruelty  and  atrocity.  Disappointed  by  the 
failure  of  the  more  important  part  of  the  rising,  and 
furious  at  the  unsuccess  of  his  attempts  to  capture 
the  defended  towns,  he  turned  like  a  bloodhound 
upon  those  unfortunates  who  were  within  his  grasp. 
Old  Lord  Caulfield  was  murdered  in  Sir  Phelim's 
house  by  Sir  Phelim's  own  foster-brother  ;  Mr.  Blaney, 
the  member  for  Monaghan,  was  hanged  ;  and  some 
hundreds  of  the  inhabitants  of  Armagh,  who  had 
surrendered  on  promise  of  their  lives,  were  massacred 
in  cold  blood.  As  for  the  more  irregular  murders 
committed  in  the  open  field  upon  helpless,  terrified 
creatures,  powerless  to  defend  themselves,  they  are  too 
numerous  to  relate,  and  there  is  happily  no  purpose  to 
be  gained  in  repeating  the   harrowing  details.     The 


244  ^FORTY-ONE. 

effect  produced  by  the  condition  of  the  survivors 
upon  those  who  saw  them  arrive  in  Dublin  and  else- 
where— spent,  worn  out,  frozen  with  cold,  creeping 
along  on  hands  and  knees,  and  all  but  at  the  point 
of  death — was  evidently  ineffaceable,  and  communi- 
cates itself  vividly  to  us  as  we  read  their  descriptions. 

The  effect  of  cruelty,  too,  is  to  produce  more 
cruelty  ;  of  horrors  like  these  to  breed  more  horrors  ; 
till  the  very  earth  seems  covered  with  the  hideous 
brood,  and  the  most  elementary  instincts  of  humanity 
die  away  under  their  poisonous  breath.  So  it  was 
now  in  Ireland.  The  atrocities  committed  upon  one 
side  were  almost  equalled,  though  not  upon  so  large 
a  scale  by  the  other.  One  of  the  first  actions  per- 
formed by  a  Scotch  force,  sent  over  to  Carrickfergus 
by  the  king,  was  to  sally  out  like  demons  and  merci- 
lessly slaughter  some  thirty  Irish  families  living  in 
Island  Magee,  who  had  nothing  whatever  to  say  to  the 
rising.  In  Wicklow,  too,  Sir  Charles  Coote,  sent  to 
suppress  a  disturbance  amongst  the  O'Byrnes  and 
O'Tooles,  perpetrated  atrocities  the  memory  of  which 
still  survives  in  the  region,  and  which,  for  cold- 
blooded, deliberate  horror  almost  surpass  those  com- 
mitted in  the  north.  The  spearing  by  his  soldiery 
of  infants  which  had  hardly  left  the  breast  he  himself 
openly  avowed,  and  excused  upon  tlie  plea  that  if 
allowed  to  survive  they  would  grow  up  to  be  men 
and  women,  and  that  his  object  was  to  extirpate  the 
entire  brood. 

Here  and  there  a  faint  gleam  falls  upon  the 
blackened  page.  Bedell,  the  Bishop  of  Kilmore, 
who  had  won  the  reverence  even  of  his  fiercest  op- 


CARNAGE   AND   OUTRAGE.  245 

ponents,  was  allowed  to  remain  free  and  undisturbed 
in  the  midst  of  the  worst  scenes  of  carnage  and 
outrage  ;  and  when  a  few  months  later  he  died, 
was  followed  weeping  to  the  grave  by  many  who  had 
been  foremost  in  the  work  of  horror.  As  to  the 
number  of  those  who  actually  perished,  either  from 
exposure,  or  by  the  hands  of  assassins,  it  has  been 
so  variously  estimated  that  it  seems  to  be  all  but 
impossible  to  arrive  at  anything  like  exact  statistics. 
The  tale  was  black  enough  as  it  really  stood,  but 
it  was  made  blacker  still  by  rumour  and  exaggeration. 
The  real  number  of  the  victims  grew  to  tenfold  in 
the  telling.  Four  thousand  murdered  swelled  to  forty 
thousand;  and  eight  thousand  who  died  of  exposure, 
to  eighty  thousand.  Even  now  every  fresh  historian 
sets  the  sum  total  down  at  a  different  figure.  Take 
it,  however,  at  the  very  lowest,  it  is  still  a  horrible  one. 
Let  us  shut  our  eyes  and  pass  on.  The  history  of 
those  days  remains  in  Carlyle's  words,  "  Not  a  picture, 
but  a  huge  blot :  an  indiscriminate  blackness,  one 
which  the  human  memory  cannot  willingly  charge 
itself  with  !  " 


XXXVI. 

THE   WATERS   SPREAD. 

So  far  the  rising  had  been  merely  local.  It  was 
now  to  assume  larger  dimensions.  Although  shocked 
at  the  massacre,  and  professing  an  eager  desire  to 
march  in  person  to  punish  its  perpetrators,  Charles' 
chief  aim  was  really  that  terms  should  be  made  with 
the  leaders,  in  order  that  their  troops  might  be  made 
available  for  service  in  England. 

In  Dublin  courts-martial  were  being  rapidly  estab- 
lished. All  Protestants  were  given  arms  ;  all  strangers 
were  ordered  to  quit  the  city  on  pain  of  death  ;  Sir 
Francis  Willoughby  was  given  the  command  of  the 
castle  ;  Sir  Charles  Coote  made  military  governor 
of  the  city.  Ormond  was  anxious  to  take  the  field 
in  the  north  before  the  insurrection  spread  further, 
before  they  had  time,  as  he  said,  to  "  file  their  pikes." 
This  the  Lords  Justices  however  refused  to  allow.  They 
were  waiting  for  orders  from  the  English  Parliament, 
with  which  they  were  in  close  alliance,  and  were  per- 
fectly willing  to  let  the  revolt  spread  so  that  the  area 
of  confiscated  lands  might  be  the  greater. 

None  of  the  three  southern  provinces  had  as  yet  risen. 


THE   GENERAL    UPRISING.  247 

in  the  Pale  the  Anglo-Norman  families  were  warm 
in  their  expressions  of  loyalty,  and  appealed  earnestly 
to  the  Lords  Justices  to  summon  a  parliament,  and 
to  distribute  arms  for  their  protection.  This  last 
was  refused,  and  although  a  parliament  assembled  it 
was  instantly  prorogued,  and  no  measures  were  taken 
to  provide  for  the  safety  of  the  well-disposed.  Early 
in  December  of  the  same  year  Lords  Fingal,  Gormans- 
town,  Dunsany,  and  others  of  the  principal  Pale  peers, 
with  a  large  number  of  the  local  gentry,  met  upon 
horseback,  at  Swords,  in  Meath,  to  discuss  their  future 
conduct.  The  opposition  between  the  king  and  Par- 
liament was  daily  growing  fiercer.  The  Lords  Justices 
were  the  nominees  of  Parliament  ;  to  revolt  against 
them  was  not,  therefore,  it  was  argued,  to  revolt  against 
the  king.  Upon  December  17th  they  met  again  in 
yet  larger  numbers,  upon  the  hill  of  Crofty,  where 
they  were  met  by  some  of  the  leaders  of  the  north. 
Rory  O'Moore, — a  man  of  no  little  address,  who 
was  personally  clear  of  the  worst  stain  of  the 
massacres,  and  who  had  lately  issued  a  proclamation 
declaring  that  he  and  his  followers  were  in  arms,  not 
against  Charles,"but  the  Parliament — was  the  principal 
speaker  on  this  occasion,  and  his  arguments  appear  to 
have  decided  the  waverers.  They  agreed  unanimously 
to  throw  in  their  lot  with  their  co-religionists.  From 
that  moment  the  rising  had  become  a  national  one. 
The  whole  island  was  soon  in  arms.  Munster  followed 
Leinster,  and  Conn  aught  shortly  afterwards  followed 
Munster.  Lords  Thomond,  Clanricarde,  and  a  few 
others  stood  out,  but  by  the  end  of  the  year,  with  the 
exception  of  Dublin,  Drogheda,  Cork,  Galway,  Ennis- 


248  THE    WATERS   SPREAD. 

killen,  Derry,  and  some  few  other  towns,  all  Ireland 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  rebels. 

Even  then  the  Lords  Justices  seem  to  have  but  little 
realized  the  gravity  of  the  crisis.  They  occupied  their 
time  chiefly  in  preparing  indictments,  and  cheerfully 
calculating  the  fast-growing  area  of  land  open  to  con- 
fiscation. In  vain  Ormond  entreated  to  be  allowed  to 
proceed  against  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill.  They  steadily 
declined  to  allow  him  to  leave  the  neighbourhood  of 
Dublin. 

The  northern  rising  had  by  this  time  nearly  worn 
itself  out  by  its  own  excesses.  Sir  Phelim's  efforts 
to  take  Drogheda  were  ludicrously  unavailing,  and  he 
had  been  forced  to  take  his  ragged  rabble  away 
without  achieving  anything.  Regarded  as  an  army 
it  had  one  striking  peculiarity  —  there  was  not  a 
single  military  man  in  it !  Sir  Phelim  himself  had 
been  bred  to  the  law  ;  Rory  O'Moore  was  a  self-taught 
insurgent  who  had  never  smelt  powder.  They  had 
no  arms,  no  officers,  no  discipline,  no  organization  of 
any  kind  ;  what  was  more,  the  men  were  deserting  in 
all  directions.  In  the  south  there  was  no  one  either 
to  take  the  command.  The  new  levies  were  willing 
enough  to  fight,  but  there  was  no  one  to  show  them 
how.  The  insurrection  seemed  in  a  fair  way  of  dying 
out  from  sheer  want  of  leadership. 

Suddenly  reinforcements  arrived  in  two  directions 
almost  at  the  same  time.  Owen  O'Neill — better 
known  as  Owen  Roe — an  honourable  and  gallant 
man,  who  had  served  with  much  distinction  upon  the 
Continent,  landed  in  Donegal,  accompanied  by  about 
a  hundred  French-Irish  officers.     He  instantly  took 


^JAJi  HOHMAl  SOI: 

Los  A,7g-efe.Q  Ca', 
THE   CATHOLIC   CONFEDERACY.  249 

the  command  of  the  disorganized  and  fast-dissolving 
northern  levies  ;  superseded  the  incompetent  Sir 
Phelim,  who  from  that  moment  fell  away  into  con- 
tempt and  impotence  ;  suppressed  all  disorders,  and 
punished,  as  far  as  possible,  those  who  had  been  fore- 
most in  the  work  of  blood,  expressing  at  the  same 
time  his  utter  detestation  of  the  horrors  which  had 
hitherto  blackened  the  rising. 

Almost  at  the  same  moment  Colonel  Preston,  a 
brother  of  Lord  Gormanstown,  and  an  officer  who 
had  also  served  wath  credit  in  the  European  wars, 
landed  in  the  south,  bringing-  with  him  a  store  of 
ammunition  and  field  artillery,  and  between  four  and 
five  hundred  exiled  Irish  officers.  The  two  forces 
thereupon  began  to  assume  a  comparatively  organized 
appearance.  Both,  however,  were  so  far  perfectly  inde- 
pendent of  each  other,  and  both  openly  and  avowedly 
hostile  to  the  king. 

To  effect  a  union  between  these  northern  and  south- 
ern insurgents  a  meeting  was  summoned  at  Kilkenny 
in  October,  1642,  consisting  of  over  two  hundred 
Roman  Catholic  deputies,  nearly  all  the  Irish  Roman 
Catholic  bishops,  many  of  the  clergy,  and  some  four- 
teen peers.  A  council  was  formed  of  which  Lord 
Mountgarret  was  appointed  President.  Owen  Roe 
O'Neill  was  at  the  same  time  confirmed  in  the  com- 
mand of  the  northern  forces,  and  Colonel  Preston  in 
that  of  the  southern.  The  war  was  declared  to  be  a 
Catholic  one,  to  be  known  henceforward  as  the 
Catholic  Confederacy,  and  between  old  Irish  and 
Anglo-Irish  there  was  to  be  no  difference. 

Charles's  great  aim  was  now  to  persuade  the  Con- 


250  THE    WATERS   SPREAD. 

federates  to  unite  with  one  another  in  his  support. 
The  chief  difficulty  was  a  religious  one.  The  Kilkenny 
Council  stood  out  for  the  restoration  of  the  Catholic 
Church  in  all  its  original  privileges.  This,  for  his  own 
sake — especially  in  the  then  excited  state  of  feeling  in 
England — Charles  dared  not  grant,  neither  would 
Ormond  abet  him  in  doing  so.  Between  the  latter 
and  the  Catholic  peers  there  was,  however,  a  com- 
plete understanding,  while  between  him  and  the 
Dublin  Lords  Justices  there  was  an  all  but  complete 
breach. 

The  King  decided  upon  ^coupde  main.  He  dismissed 
the  Lords  Justices,  and  ordered  several  of  the  more 
Puritan  members  of  the  Privy  Council  to  be  tried  for 
treason.  The  result  was  a  rapid  exodus  of  nearly  the 
whole  governing  body  to  England.  Early  in  1644 
Ormond  was  made  Lord-deputy,  and  a  truce  of  a 
year  was  entered  into  with  the  Confederates.  Only 
the  extravagance  of  the  Litter's  demands  now  stood 
in  the  way  of  a  complete  union. 


XXXVII. 


CIVIL      WAR. 


The  passionate  excitement  which  the  news  of 
the  Ulster  massacre  had  awakened  in  England 
seems  to  have  deepened,  rather  than  diminished, 
as  time  went  on,  and  the  details  became  more 
known.  Nothing  that  has  happened  within  living 
memory  can  be  even  approximately  compared  to  it, 
though,  perhaps,  those  who  are  old  enough  to 
remember  the  sensations  awakened  by  the  news  of 
the  Indian  Mutiny  will  be  able  most  nearly  to  realize 
the  wrath  and  passionate  desire  of  revenge  which  filled 
every  Protestant  breast.  That  the  circumstances  of 
the  case  were  not  taken  into  consideration  was  almost 
inevitable.  Looking  back  with  calmer  vision — though 
even  now  a  good  deal  of  fog  and  misconception  seems 
to  prevail  upon  the  subject — we  can  see  that  some  such 
outbreak  was  all  but  inevitable  ;  might  have  been, 
indeed  ought  to  have  been,  foreseen.  A  wildly- 
excitable  population  driven  from  the  land  which  they 
and  their  fathers  had  held  from  time  immemorial, 
confined  to  a  narrow  and,  for  the  most  part,  a  worth- 
less tract ;  seeing  others  in  possession  of  these  "  fat 
lands  "  which  they  still  regarded  as  their  own — exiled 


252  CIVTL    WAR. 

to  make  room  for  planters'  of  another  race  and 
another  faith — what,  in  the  name  of  sense  or  reason, 
was  to  be  expected  except  what  happened  ?  That 
the  very  instant  protection  was  withdrawn  the  hour  Ibr 
retribution  would  be  felt  to  have  struck.  The  un- 
happy Protestant  colonists  were  absolutely  guiltless 
in  the  matter.  They  were  simply  the  victims,  as  the 
earlier  proprietors  had  been  the  victims  before  them. 
The  wrongs  that  had  been  wrought  thirty  years 
earlier  by  Sir  John  Davis  and  the  Dublin  lawyers  had 
been  wiped  out  in  their  unoffending  blood. 

This  point  is  so  important  to  realize,  and  the  whole 
rising  has  so  often  been  described  as  a  purely  religious 
and  fanatical  one,  that  it  is  worth  dwelling  upon  it  a 
minute  or  two  longer.  It  was  a  rising,  unquestionably, 
of  a  native  Roman  Catholic  community  against  an 
introduced  Protestant  one,  and  the  religious  element* 
no  doubt,  counted  for  something — though  it  is  not 
easy  to  say  for  how  much — in  the  matter.  In  any 
case  it  was  the  smallest  least  vital  part  of  the  long 
gathered  fury  which  resulted  in  that  deed  of  ven- 
geance. The  rising  was  essentially  an  agrarian  one — 
as  almost  every  Irish  rising  has  been  before  and 
since — and  the  fact  that  the  two  rival  creeds  found 
themselves  face  to  face  was  little  more  than  a  very 
unfortunate  accident.  Could  the  plantations  of 
James  the  First's  time  have  been  formed  exclu- 
sively of  English  or  Scotch  Roman  Catholics,  we 
have  no  reason,  and  certainly  no  right  to  conclude 
that  the  event  would  have  been  in  any  way  different, 
or  that  the  number  of  those  slaughtered  would  have 
been  reduced  by  even  a  single  victim. 


NEGOTIATIONS    WITH    THE   CONFEDERATES.      253 

It  was  not,  hovvcrer,  to  be  expected  that  the 
EngHsh  Protestants  of  that  day  would  realize  this. 
It  is  not  always  fully  realized  even  yet.  The  heat 
awakened  by  that  ruthless  slaughter,  that  merciless 
driving  away  of  hundreds  of  innocent  women  and  chil- 
dren, the  natural  pity  for  the  youth  and  helplessness  of 
many  of  the  victims  has  lasted  down  to  our  own  time. 
Even  to  us  the  outrage  is  a  thousand-fold  more  vivid 
than  the  provocation  which  led*  to  it.  How  much 
more  then  to  the  English  Protestants  of  that  day,? 
To  them  it  was  simply  a  new  massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew ;  an  atrocity  which  the  very  amplest  and  bloodiest 
vengeance  would  still  come  far  short  of  expiating. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  any  negotiation  with  those 
implicated  in  a  deed  which  had  produced  so  widespread 
a  feeling  of  horror  was  a  proceeding  fraught  with  peril 
to  the  royal  cause.  Anger  does  not  discriminate,  and 
to  the  Protestants  of  England,  North  and-  South,  old 
Irish,  and  Anglo-Irish,  honourable  gentlemen  of  the 
Pale,  and  red-handed  rebels  of  Ulster,  were  all  alike 
guilty.  Nor  was  this  Charles's  only  difficulty.  The 
Confederates  declined  to  abate  a  jot  of  their  terms. 
The  free  exercise  of  the  Catholic  religion,  an  in- 
dependent Irish  parliament,  a  general  pardon,  and 
a  reversal  of  all  attainders  were  amongst  their  con- 
ditions, and  they  would  not  take  less.  These  Ormond 
dared  not  agree  to.  Had  he  done  so  every  Protestant 
in  Ireland,  down  to  his  own  soldiery,  would  have  gone 
over  in  a  body  to  the  Parliament.  He  offered  what 
he  dared,  but  the  Irish  leaders  would  listen  to  no  com- 
promise. They  knew  the  imminence  of  the  situation 
as  well  as  he  did,  and  every  fresh  royal  defeat,  the 


254  CTVIL    WAR. 

news  of  which  reached  Ireland,  only  made  them  stand 
out  the  firmer. 

Charles  cut  the  knot  in  his  own  fashion.  Tired  of 
Ormond's  discretion  and  Ormond's  inconvenient 
sense  of  honour,  he  secretly  sent  over  Edward 
Somerset,  Earl  of  Glamorgan,  to  make  terms  with 
the  Confederates,  who,  excited  at  finding  themselves 
the  last  hope  and  mainstay  of  an  embarrassed  king 
stood  out  for  higher  and  higher  conditions.  The  Plan- 
tation lands  were  to  be  given  back :  full  and  free 
pardon  was  to  be  granted  to  all ;  Mass  was  to  be 
said  in  all  the  churches.  To  these  terms  and  every- 
thing else  required,  Glamorgan  agreed,  and  the  Con- 
federates, thereupon,  agreed  to  despatch  a  large  force, 
when  called  upon  to  do  so,  to  England,  and  in  the 
meantime  to  make  sham  terms  with  Ormond,  keeping 
him  in  the  dark  as  to  this  secret  compact. 

It  was  not  long  a  secret.  Ormond  seems  to  have 
had  some  suspicions  of  it  from  the  beginning,  and  an 
incident  which  presently  occurred  made  suspicion  cer- 
tainty. The  town  of  Sligo  had  been  captured  by  the 
parliamentary  troops  under  Coote.and  in  October,  1645, 
an  attempt  was  made  to  recapture  it  by  a  party  of  Irish 
under  a  fighting  prelate,  the  Roman  Catholic  Arch- 
bishop of  Tuam.  In  the  struggle  which  ensued  the 
Archbishop  was  killed,  and  upon  his  body  was  found 
a  copy  of  the  secret  treaty  which  was  straightway 
despatched  by  Coote  to  London. 

It  awakened  a  sensation  hardly  less  than  that  with 
which  the  news  of  the  massacre  it5elf  had  been  re- 
ceived. It  was  the  one  thing  still  wanting  to  damage 
the  royal  cause.     Charles,  it  is  true,  denied  it  stoutly, 


DEFEAT  OF   THE  PROTESTANTS.  255 

and  the  English  royalists  tried  to  accept  the  denial. 
The  Irish  ones  knew  better.  Ormond,  whose  own 
honour  was  untouched,  did  what  he  could  to  save  his 
king's.  The  Confederates,  however,  admitted  it  openly, 
and  Glamorgan,  after  suffering  a  short  and  purely 
fictitious  imprisonment,  remained  in  Ireland  to  carry 
out  his  master's  orders. 

The  already  crowded  confusion  of  the  scene 
there  had  lately  been  added  to  by  a  new  actor. 
Rinucini,  Archbishop  of  Fermo,  had  been  despatched 
by  Pope  Innocent  X.  as  his  nuncio,  and  at  once 
threw  himself  into  the  struggle.  To  him  it  narrowed 
itself  to  one  point.  The  moment,  he  felt,  had  now 
come  for  the  re-establishment  of  the  Catholic  religion 
in  Ireland,  and  if  possible  for  its  union  with  one  of 
the  Catholic  Powers  of  Europe,  and  in  order  to 
achieve  this  object,  his  great  aim  was  to  hinder,  if 
possible,  anything  like  a  reconciliation  between  the 
Catholic  insurgents  and  the  king. 

Meanwhile,  peace  had  been  made  in  England. 
Charles  was  a  prisoner,  and  the  final  acts  of  tljat 
drama  in  which  he  plays  so  strangely  mixed  a  part 
were  shortly  to  be  enacted.  In  Ireland  there  was  no 
pretence  at  peace.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  only  then 
that  hostilities  seem  really  to  have  been  carried  on 
with  vigour.  At  a  battle  fought  upon  June  4,  1646, 
near  Benturb,  Owen  O'Neill  had  defeated  Munroe  and 
his  Scottish  forces  with  great  slaughter,  and  from  that 
moment  the  whole  north  was  in  his  power.  In  the 
south  Rinucini  was  rushing  from  town  to  town  and 
pulpit  to  pulpit,  fiercely  arousing  all  the  Catholic 
animosity  of  the  country  against  both  English  parties 
alike.     In  this  he  was  supported  by    Owen  O'Neill, 


256  CIVIL    WAR. 

who,  with  his  victorious  army,  hastened  south  to  meet 
him.  Together  the  chief  and  the  legate  marched 
in  September  of  the  same  year  into  Kilkenny  ;  took 
possession  of  the  Council  Chamber  ;  flung  the  Mode- 
rates assembled  there,  including  old  Lord  Mountgarret 
and  the  rest  of  the  Council,  into  prison.  Ormond 
was  in  Dublin,  helpless  to  meet  this  new  combination. 
No  orders  came  from  England.  The  royal  cause 
seemed  to  be  hopelessly  lost.  All  Ireland  was  swarm- 
ing with  the  troops  of  the  insurgents.  Lord  Inchiquin, 
who  had  for  a  while  declared  for  the  king,  had  now 
gone  over  to  the  Parliament.  O'Neill  and  the  legate's 
army  was  daily  gathering  strength.  It  needed  but 
a  little  more  energy  on  their  part  and  Dublin  itself, 
with  all  its  helpless  crowd  of  fugitives,  must  fall  into 
their  hands. 

In  this  dilemma  Ormond  came  to  a  resolution. 
To  throw  in  his  lot  with  Rinucini  and  the  rebels  of 
the  north,  stained  as  the  latter  were  in  his  eyes  with 
innocent  blood,  was  impossible.  Even  had  they  been 
disposed  to  combine  heartily  with  him  for  the  royal 
cause  he  could  hardly  have  done  so ;  as  it  was  there 
was  barely  a  pretence  of  any  such  intention.  If 
Charles  could  effect  his  escape  and  would  put  himself 
in  their  hands,  then,  indeed,  they  said  they  would 
support  him.  In  that  case,  however,  it  would  have 
been  as  king  of  Ireland  rather  than  England.  Or- 
mond could  not  and  would  not  stoop  to  any  such 
negotiations.  He  wrote  to  the  English  Parliament 
offering  to  surrender  Dublin  into  their  hands,  and  to 
leave  the  country.  THe  offer  was  accepted,  and  a 
month  later  he  had  relinquished  the  impossible  post, 
and  joined  the  other  escaped  Royalists  in  France. 


XXXVIII. 

THE   CONFUSION    DEEPENS. 

The  indescribable  confusion  of  aims  and  parties  in 
Ireland  begins  at  this  point  to  take  even  more  rapid 
and  perplexing  turns.  That  "  poor  panther  Inchi- 
quin,"  as  one  of  his  opponents  derisively  calls  him, 
who  had  already  made  one  bound  from  king  to  Par- 
liament, now,  upon  some  fresh  offence,  bounded  back 
again,  and  made  overtures  to  Preston  and  the  Mode- 
rates. Rinucini,  whose  only  policy  was  to  hinder  any 
union  between  the  Catholics  and  Royalists,  thereupon 
fled  to  O'Neill,  and  together  they  opposed  the  Mode- 
rates tooth  and  nail.  The  latter  were  now  seriously 
anxious  to  make  terms  with  the  Royalists.  The  king's 
trial  was  beginning,  and  his  peril  served  to  consoli- 
date all  but  the  most  extreme.  Ormond  himself 
returned  late  in  1648  from  France  ;  Prince  Rupert 
arrived  early  the  following  year  with  a  small  fleet  of 
ships  off  Kinsale,  and  every  day  brought  crowds  of 
loyal  gentlemen  to  Ireland  as  to  a  final  vantage 
ground  upon  which  to  try  a  last  desperate  throw  for 
the  royal  cause. 

In  Dublin  the  command,  upon  Ormond's  surrender, 
had  been  given  by  the  Parliament  to  Colonel  Michael 


258  THE   CONFUSION  DEEPENS. 

Jones,  a  Puritan  officer,  who  had  greatly  distinguished 
himself  in  the  late  war.  The  almost  ludicrously  in- 
volved state  into  which  things  had  got  is  seen  by  the 
fact  that  Jones,  though  himself  the  leader  of  the 
Parliamentary  forces,  struck  up  at  this  juncture  a  tem- 
porary alliance  with  O'Neill,  and  instructed  Monk 
who  was  in  the  north,  to  support  him.  The  king's 
death  brought  all  the  Royalists,  and  most  of  the  more 
moderate  rebels  into  line  at  last.  Rinucini,  feeling 
that  whatever  happened,  his  project  of  a  separate  Ire- 
land had  become  impossible,  fled  to  Italy.  Even 
O'Neill,  finding  that  his  alliance  with  Jones  was  not 
prospering,  and  that  the  stricter  Puritans  declined 
with  horror  the  bare  idea  of  holding  any  communica- 
tion with  him  or  his  forces,  gave  in  his  adhesion. 
Old  Irish  and  Anglo-Irish,  Protestant  and  Catholic, 
North  and  South,  all  at  last  were  in  arms  for  the  king. 
The  struggle  had  thus  narrowed  itself  It  was 
now  practically  between  Dublin,  commanded  by 
Jones,  the  Parliamentary  general,  upon  one  side,  and 
all  Ireland  under  Ormond  and  the  now  united  Con- 
federates on  the  other.  Cromwell,  it  was  known,  was 
preparing  for  a  descent  upon  Ireland,  and  had  issued 
liberal  offers  of  the  forfeited  Irish  lands  to  all  who 
would  aid  him  in  the  enterprise.  He  had  first,  how- 
ever, to  land,  and  there  was  nowhere  that  he  could  do 
so  excepting  at  Dublin  or  Londonderry.  All  the 
efforts  therefore  of  the  Royalists  were  concentrated 
upon  taking  the  capital  before  it  became  the  starting- 
point  of  a  new  campaign.  Marching  hastily  from 
Kilkenny,  Ormond  established  himself  at  a  place 
called  Baggotrath,  near  Rathmines,  and  close  to  the 


JAMES,    DUKE   OF   ORMOND. 

(Frotn  an  engraving  by  White,  after  a  picture  by  Kneller. ) 


26o  THE    CONFUSION   DEEPENS. 

walls  of  the  town.  Two  nights  after  his  arrival  he  sent 
forward  a  body  of  men  under  Colonel  Purcell  to  try 
and  effect  a  surprise.  Jones,  however,  was  on  the 
alert  ;  drove  Purcell  back,  and,  following  him  with 
all  the  men  at  his  command,  fell  upon  Ormond's 
camp,  where  no  proper  watch  was  being  kept.  The 
surprise  was  thus  completely  reversed.  Six  thousand 
of  the  confederate  troops  were  killed  or  forced  to 
surrender,  and  Ormond,  with  the  remainder,  had  to 
fall  back  upon  Kilkenny. 

The  battle  of  Baggotrath  does  not  figure  amongst 
the  more  famous  battles  of  this  period,  but  it  was  cer- 
tainly the  turning-point  of  the  Irish  campaign.  With 
his  crippled  forces,  Ormond  was  unable  again  to  take 
the  field,  and  Jones  was  therefore  left  in  undisputed 
possession  of  Dublin.  A  week  later,  in  August,  1649, 
Cromwell  had  landed  there  with  12,000  troops  at  his 
back. 


XXXIX. 


CROMWELL   IN    IRELAND. 


Cromwell  had  hardly  set  foot  upon  Irish  soil 
before  he  took  complete  control  of  the  situation. 
The  enterprise,  in  his  own  eyes  and  in  those  of  many 
who  accompanied  him,  wore  all  the  sacred  hue  of  a 
crusade.  "  We  are  come,"  he  announced,  solemnly, 
upon  his  arrival  in  Dublin,  "  to  ask  an  account  of  the 
innocent  blood  that  hath  been  shed,  and  to  endeavour 
to  bring  to  an  account  all  who,  by  appearing  in  arms, 
shall  justify  the  same." 

Three  thousand  troops,  the  flower  of  the  English 
cavaliers,  with  some  of  the  Royalists  of  the  Pale — 
none  of  whom,  it  may  be  said,  had  anything  to  say 
to  the  Ulster  massacres — had  been  hastily  thrown  by 
Ormond  into  Drogheda,  under  Sir  Arthur  Ashton,  a 
gallant  Royalist  officer;  and  to  Drogheda,  accordingly 
in  September  Cromwell  marched.  Summoned  to 
yield,  the  garrison  refused.  They  were  attacked,  and 
fought  desperately,  driving  back  their  assailants  at  the 
first  assault.  At  the  second,  a  breach  was  made  in 
the  walls,  and  Ashton  and  his  force  were  driven 
into  the  citadel.  "  Being  thus  entered,"  Cromwell's 
despatch  to  the  Parliament  runs,  "  we  refused  them 


262  CROMWELL   IN  IRELAND. 

quarter.  I  believe  we  put  to  the  sword  the  whole 
number  of  the  defendents.  I  do  not  think  thirty 
escaped.  Those  that  did  are  in  safe  custody  for  the 
Barbadoes.  ...  I  wish,"  he  adds,  a  little  later  in  the 
same  despatch,  "  all  honest  hearts  may  give  the  glory 
of  this  to  God  alone." 

From  Drogheda,  the  Lord-General  turned  south 
to  Wexford.  Here  an  equally  energetic  defence 
was  followed  by  an  equally  successful  assault,  and 
this  also  by  a  similar  drama  of  slaughter.  "  There 
was  lost  of  the  enemy,"  he  himself  writes,  "  not  many 
less  than  two  thousand  ;  and,  I  believe,  not  twenty 
of  yours  from  first  to  last."  The  soldiers,  he  goes  on 
to  say,  "  got  a  very  good  booty  in  this  place."  Of 
"  the  former  inhabitants  .  .  .  most  of  them  are  run 
away,  and  many  of  them  killed  in  this  service.  It 
were  to  be  wished  that  some  honest  people  would 
come  and  plant  here."  ^ 

The  grim  candour  of  these  despatches  needs  no 
comment.  We  see  the  whole  situation  with  that 
vividness  which  only  a  relation  at  first  hand  ever  gives. 
The  effect  of  these  two  examples  was  instantaneous. 
Most  of  the  other  towns  surrendered  upon  the  first 
summons.  The  Irish  army  fell  back  in  all  direc- 
tions. An  attempt  was  made  to  save  Kilkenny,  but 
after  a  week's  defence  it  was  surrendered.  The  same 
thing  happened  at  Clonmel,  and  within  a  few  months 
of  his  arrival  nearly  every  strong  place,  except  Water- 
ford  and  Limerick,  were  in  the  Lord-General's  hands. 

That  Cromwell,  from  his  own  point  of  view,  was 
justified  in  these  proceedings,  and  that  he  held  him- 

'  "Cromwell's  Letters  and  Speeches" — Carlyle. 


HIS  DEPARTURE  FOR   ENGLAND.  263 

self — even  when  slaughtering  English  Royalists  in 
revenge  for  the  acts  of  Irish  rebels — a  divinely-ap- 
pointed agent  sent  to  execute  justice  upon  the  un- 
godly, there  can  be  little  doubt.  As  regards  ordinary 
justice  his  conduct  was  exemplary.  Unlike  most 
of  the  armies  that  had  from  time  to  time  ravaged 
Ireland,  he  allowed  no  disorder.  His  soldiers  were 
forbidden  by  proclamation  to  plunder,  and  were 
hanged,  "  in  ropes  of  authentic  hemp,"  as  Carlyle 
remarks,  when  they  did  so.  The  merciless  slaughter 
of  two  entire  garrisons  is  a  hideous  deed,  and  a  deed, 
too,  which  appeals  with  peculiar  force  to  the  popular 
imagination.  As  compared  to  many  acts  perpetrated 
from  time  to  time  in  Ireland,  it  seems,  if  one  ex- 
amines it  coolly,  to  fade  into  comparative  whiteness, 
and  may  certainly  be  paralleled  elsewhere.  A  far 
deeper  and  more  ineffaceable  stain  rests — as  will  be 
seen  in  another  chapter — upon  Cromwell's  rule  in 
Ireland  ;  one,  moreover,  not  so  readily  justified  by 
custom  or  any  grim  necessities  of  warfare. 

The  final  steps  by  which  the  struggle  was  crushed 
out  were  comparatively  tedious.  Cromwell's  men 
were  attacked  by  that  "  country  sickness "  which 
seems  at  that  time  to  have  been  inseparable  from 
Irish  campaigns.  Writing  from  Ross  in  November,  he 
says,  "  I  scarce  know  one  officer  amongst  us  who  has 
not  been  sick."  His  own  presence,  too,  was  urgently 
required  in  England,  so  that  he  was  forced  before  long 
to  set  sail,  leaving  the  completion  of  the  campaign  in 
the  hands  of  others. 

In  the  Royalist  camp,  the  state  of  affairs  was  mean- 
while absolutely  desperate.     The  Munster  colonists 


^.64  CROMWELL   IN  IRELAND. 

had  gone  over  almost  to  a  man  to  the  enemy.  The 
"  panther  Inchiquin "  had  taken  another  bound  in 
the  same  direction.  The  quarrels  between  Ormond 
and  the  old  Irish  party  had  grown  bitterer  than 
ever.  The  hatred  of  the  extreme  Catholic  party 
towards  him  appears  to  have  been  if  anything  rather 
deeper  than  their  hatred  to  Cromwell,  and  all  the 
recent  disasters  were  charged  by  them  to  his  want  of 
generalship.  The  young  king  had  been  announced 
at  one  moment  to  be  upon  the  point  of  arriving  in 
person  in  Ireland.  "  One  must  go  and  die  there,  for 
it  is  shameful  to  live  elsewhere ! "  he  is  reported  to 
have  cried,  with  a  depth  of  feeling  very  unlike  his 
usual  utterances.  He  got  as  far  as  Jersey,  but  there 
paused.  Ireland  under  Cromwell's  rule  was  not 
exactly  a  pleasant  royal  residence,  and,  on  the  whole, 
he  appears  to  have  thought  it  wiser  to  go  no  further. 

His  signature,  a  year  later,  of  the  Covenant,  in 
return  for  the  Scotch  allegiance,  brought  about  a  final 
collapse  of  the  always  thinly  cemented  pact  in  Ire- 
land. The  old  Catholic  party  thereupon  broke  wholly 
away  from  Ormond,  and  after  a  short  struggle  he 
was  again  driven  into  exile.  From  this  time  forward, 
there  was  no  longer  a  royal  party  of  any  sort  left  in 
the  country. 

Under  Hugh  O'Neill,  a  cousin  of  Owen  Roe,  who 
— fortunately,  perhaps,  for  himself — had  died  shortly 
after  Cromwell's  arrival,  the  struggle  was  carried  on 
for  some  time  longer.  As  in  later  times.  Limerick  was 
one  of  the  last  places  to  yield.  Despite  the  evident 
hopelessness  of  the  struggle,  Hugh  O'Neill  and  his 
half-starved  men  held  it  with  a  courage  which  awoke 


SURRENDER   OF  GALWAY. 


265 


admiration  even  amongst  the  Cromwellians.  When 
it  was  surrendered  the  Irish  officers  received  per- 
mission to  take  service  abroad.  Galway,  with  a  few 
other  towns  and  castles,  which  still  held  out,  now 
surrendered.  The  eight  years'  civil  war  was  at  last 
over,  and  nothing  remained  for  the  victors  to  do  but 
to  stamp  out  the  last  sparks,  and  call  upon  the  sur- 
vivors to  pay  the  forfeit. 


ST.  columba's  oratory,  KELLS. 


XL. 

CROMWELL'S    METHODS. 

The  total  loss  of  life  during  thqse  weary  eight 
years  of  war  and  anarchy  has  been  estimated  at  no 
less  than  six  hundred  thousand  lives,  and  there  seems 
to  be  no  reason  to  think  that  these  figures  are  exag- 
gerated. Whereas  in  1641  the  population  of  Ireland 
was  nearly  one  and  a  half  millions,  at  the  end  of  1649 
it  was  considerably  under  one.  More  than  a  third, 
therefore,  of  the  entire  population  had  disappeared 
bodily. 

Nor  were  the  survivors  left  in  peace  to  bind  up 
their  wounds  and  mourn  their  slain.  In  England, 
once  the  fighting  was  over,  and  the  swords  sheathed, 
there  was  little  desire  to  carry  the  punishment  further ; 
and  the  vanquished  were,  for  the  most  part,  able  to 
retire  in  more  or  less  melancholy  comfort  to  their 
homes.  In  Ireland  the  reverse  was  the  case.  There 
the  struggle  had  been  complicated  by  a  bitterness 
unknown  elsewhere,  and  had  aroused  a  keen  and 
determined  thirst  for  vengeance,  one  which  the  ces- 
sation of  hostilities  only  seemed  to  stimulate  into 
greater  vehemence. 

The  effect,  especially  amongst  the  Puritans,  of  the 


HIS  SCHEME   OF  EVICTION.  267 

Ulster  massacres,  far  from  dying  out,  had  grown 
fiercer  and  bitterer  with  every  year.  Now  that  the 
struggle  was  over,  that  Ireland  lay  like  an  inert  thing 
in  the  hands  of  her  victors,  her  punishment,  it  was 
resolved,  should  begin.  Had  that  punishment  fallen 
only  on  the  heads  of  those  who  could  be  proved  to 
have  had  any  complicity  in  that  deed  of  blood  there 
would  not  have  been  a  word  to  say.  Sir  Phelim 
O'Neill  was  dragged  from  the  obscurity  to  which  ever 
since  the  coming  of  Owen  Roe  he  had  been  consigned, 
tried  in  Dublin,  and  hanged — with  little  regret  even 
from  his  own  side.  Lord  Mayo,  who  had  taken  a 
prominent  part  in  the  rising,  and  was  held  responsible 
for  a  horrible  massacre  perpetrated  at  Shrule  Bridge, 
near  Tuam,  was  shot  in  Connaught.  Lord  Muskerry 
was  tried,  and  honourably  acquitted.  Other  trials 
took  place,  chiefly  by  court-martial,  and  though  some 
of  these  appear  to  have  been  unduly  pressed,  on  the 
whole,  considering  the  state  of  feelings  that  had  been 
awakened,  it  may  be  allowed  that  so  far  stern  justice 
had  not  outstepped  her  province. 

It  was  very  different  with  what  was  to  follow. 
An  enormous  scheme  of  eviction  had  been  planned 
by  Cromwell  which  was  to  include  all  the  native  and 
nearly  all  the  Anglo- Irish  inhabitants  of  Ireland, 
with  the  exception  of  the  humblest  tillers  of  the  soil, 
who  were  reserved  as  serfs  or  servants.  This  was  a 
scheme  of  nothing  less  than  the  transportation  of  all 
the  existing  Catholic  landowners  of  Ireland,  who,  at 
a  certain  date,  were  ordered  to  quit  their  homes,  and 
depart  in  a  body  into  Connaught,  there  to  inhabit  a 
narrow  desolate  tract,  between  the  Shannon  and  the 


268  CROMWELL'S   METHODS. 

sea,  destitute,  for  the  most  part,  of  houses  or  any  ac- 
commodation for  their  reception  ;  where  they  were 
to  be  debarred  from  entering  any  walled  town,  and 
where  a  cordon  of  soldiers  was  to  be  stationed  to 
prevent  their  return.  May  i,  1654,.  was  the  date  fixed 
for  this  national  exodus,  and  all  who  after  that  date 
were  found  east  of  the  appointed  line  were  to  suffer 
the  penalty  of  death. 

The  dismay  awakened  when  the  magnitude  of  this 
scheme  burst  upon  the  unhappy  country  may  easily 
be  conceived.  Delicate  ladies,  high-born  men  and 
women,  little  children,  the  old,  the  sick,  the  suffering 
— all  were  included  in  this  common  disaster ;  all 
were  to  share  alike  in  this  vast  and  universal  sentence 
of  banishment.  Resistance,  too,  was  hopeless.  Every- 
thing that  could  be  done  in  the  way  of  resistance  had 
already  been  done,  and  the  result  was  visible.  The 
Irish  Parliament  had  ceased  to  exist.  A  certain 
number  of  its  Protestant  members  had  been  trans- 
ferred by  Cromwell  to  the  English  one, — thus  antici- 
pating the  Union  that  was  to  come  a  century  and 
a  half  later.  The  whole  government  of  the  country 
was  at  present  centred  in  a  board  of  commissioners, 
who  sat  in  Dublin,  and  whose  direct  interest  it  was  to 
hasten  the  exodus  as  much  as  possible. 

For  the  new  owners,  who  were  to  supplant  those 
about  to  be  ejected,  were  ready  and  waiting  to  step 
into  their  places.  The  Cromwellian  soldiers  who 
had  served  in  the  war  had  all  received  promises  of 
grants  of  land,  and  their  pay,  now  several  years 
due,  was  also  to  be  paid  to  them  in  the  same  coin. 
The  intention    was,  that   they   were   to  be  marched 


MILITARY   COLONIES.  269 

down  regiment  by  regiment,  and  company  by  com- 
pany, to  ground  already  chosen  for  them  by  lot,  then 
and  there  disbanded,  and  put  into  possession.  A  vast 
Protestant  military  colony  was  thus  to  be  established 
over  the  whole  of  the  eastern  provinces.  In  addition 
to  these  an  immense  number  of  English  speculators 
had  advanced  money  upon  Irish  lands,  and  were  now 
eagerly  waiting  to  receive  their  equivalent. 

As  the  day  drew  nearer,  there  arose  all  over 
Ireland  a  wild  plea  for  time,  for  a  little  breathing 
time  before  being  driven  into  exile.  The  first  sum- 
mons had  gone  out  in  the  autumn,  and  had  been 
proclaimed  by  beat  of  drum  and  blast  of  trumpet  all 
over  the  country,  and  as  the  ist  of  May  began  to 
approach  the  plea  grew  more  and  more  urgent.  So 
evident  was  the  need  for  delay  that  some,  even 
among  the  Parliamentarians,  were  moved  to  pity, 
and  urged  that  a  little  more  time  might  be  granted. 
The  command  to  "  root  out  the  heathen "  was  felt 
to  be  imperative,  but  even  the  heathen  might  be 
allowed  a  little  time  to  collect  his  goods,  and  to  pro- 
vide some  sort  of  a  roof  to  shelter  him  in  this  new 
and  forlorn  home  to  which  he  was  being  sent. 

It  happened,  too,  that  some  of  the  first  batches 
of  exiles  were  ordered  into  North  Clare,  to  a  district 
known  as  the  Burren,  whose  peculiarity  is  that  what 
little  soil  is  to  be  found  there  has  collected  into  rifts 
below  the  surface,  or  accumulated  into  pockets  of 
earth  at  the  feet  of  the  hills,  leaving  the  rest  of  the 
surface  sheer  rock,  the  very  streams,  whose  edges 
would  otherwise  be  green,  being  mostly  carried  under- 
ground.    The  general   appearance  of  the  region  has 


270  CROMWELL'S  METHODS. 

been  vividly  described  by  one  of  the  commissioners 
engaged  in  carrying  out  this  very  act  of  transplan- 
tation, who,  writing  back  to  Dublin  for  further  in- 
structions, informs  his  superiors  that  the  region  in 
question  did  not  possess  "  water  enough  to  drown  a 
man,  trees  enough  to  hang  a  man,  or  earth  enough  to 
bury  a  man."  It  may  be  conceived  what  an  effect 
such  a  region,  so  described,  must  have  had  upon  men 
fresh  from  the  fertile  and  flourishing  pasture-lands  of 
Meath  and  Kildare.  Many  turned  resolutely  back, 
preferring  rather  to  die  than  to  attempt  life  under 
such  new  and  hopeless  conditions,  and  stern  examples 
had  to  be  made  before  the  unwilling  emigrants  were 
at  last  fairly  got  underweigh. 

Yet  even  such  exile  as  this  was  better  than  the  lot 
of  some.  The  wives  and  families  of  the  Irish  officers 
and  soldiers  who  had  been  allowed  to  go  into  foreign 
service,  had,  of  necessity,  been  left  behind,  and  a  con- 
siderable number  of  these,  the  Government  now  pro- 
ceeded to  ship  in  batches  to  the  West  Indies  to  be  sold 
as  slaves.  Several  thousand  women,  ladies  and  others, 
were  thus  seized  and  sold  by  dealers,  often  without 
any  individual  warrant,  and  it  was  not  until  after  the 
accidental  seizure  of  some  of  the  wives  of  the  Crom- 
wellian  soldiers  that  the  traffic  was  put  under  regu- 
lations. Cromwell's  greatness  needs  no  defence,  but 
the  slaughter  of  the  garrisons  of  Drogheda  and 
Wexford,  reckoned  amongst  the  worst  blemishes  upon 
that  greatness,  pales  beside  such  an  act  as  this  ;  one 
which  would  show  murkily  even  upon  the  blackened 
record  of  an  Alva  or  a  Pizarro. 

Slowly   the    long    trains   of  exiles    began  now  to 


FAILURE   OF   THE   EVICTION  SCHEME.         27 1 

pour  out  in  all  directions.  Herds  of  cattle,  horses 
laden  with  furniture,  with  food,  with  all  the  every- 
day necessities  of  such  a  multitude  accompanied 
them.  All  across  that  wide  limestone  plain,  which 
covers  the  centre  of  Ireland,  innumerable  family 
groups  were  to  be  seen  slowly  streaming  west.  There 
were  few  roads,  and  those  few  very  bad.  Hardly 
a  wheeled  conveyance  of  any  sort  existed  in  the 
country.  Those  who  were  too  weak  to  walk  or  to  ride 
had  to  be  carried  on  men's  backs  or  in  horse  litters. 
The  confusion,  the  misery,  the  cold,  the  wretched- 
ness may  be  conceived,  and  always  behind,  urging 
them  on,  rebuking  the  loiterers,  came  the  armed  escort 
sent  to  drive  them  into  exile — Puritan  seraphs,  with 
drawn  swords,  set  to  see  that  none  returned  whence 
they  came ! 

Nor  was  there  even  any  marked  satisfaction  amongst 
those  who  inherited  the  lands  and  houses  thus  left 
vacant.  Many  of  the  private  soldiers  who  had  re- 
ceived bonds  or  debentures  for  their  share  of  the 
land,  had  parted  with  them  long  since,  either  to  their 
own  officers  or  to  the  trafficers  in  such  bonds,  vvho 
had  sprang  up  by  hundreds,  and  who  obtained  them 
from  the  needy  soldiers  often  for  a  mere  trifle.  Sharp- 
sighted  speculators  like  Dr.  Petty,  by  whom  the 
well-known  Survey  of  Ireland  was  made,  acquired 
immense  tracts  of  land  at  little  or  no  outlay.  Of 
those  soldiers,  too,  who  did  receive  grants  of  land 
many  left  after  a  while.  Others,  despite  all  regu- 
lations to  the  contrary,  married  Irish  wives,  and  their 
children  in  the  next  generation  were  found  to  have 
not  only  become  Roman  Catholics,  but  to  be  actually 


272 


CROMWELL'S  METHODS. 


unable  to  speak  a  word  of  English.  Many,  too,  of  the 
dispossessed  proprietors,  the  younger  ones  especially, 
continued  to  hang  about,  and  either  harassed  the  new 
owners  and  stole  their  goods,  or  made  friends  with 
them,  and  managed  after  a  while  to  slip  back  upon 
some  excuse  into  their  old  homes.  No  sternness  of  the 
Puritan  leaven  availed  to  hinder  the  new  settlers  from 
being  absorbed  into  the  country,  as  other  and  earlier 
settlers  had  been  absorbed  before  them  ;  marrying 
its  daughters,  adopting  its  ways,  and  becoming  them- 
selves in  time  Irishmen,  The  bitter  memory  of  that 
vast  and  wholesale  act  of  eviction  has  remained,  but 
the  good  which  it  was  hoped  would  spring  from  it 
faded  away  almost  within  a  generation. 


XLI. 


THE   ACT  OF   SETTLEMENT. 


Cromwell  was  now  dead,  and  after  a  very  short 
attempt  at  government  his  son  Richard  had  reh'n- 
quished  the  reins  and  retired  into  private  Hfe.  Henry- 
Cromwell,  who  had  for  several  years  been  Lord- 
Lieutenant  in  Ireland,  and  had  won  no  little  liking  by 
his  mild  and  equable  rule,  also  honourably  resigned  at 
the  same  time,  and  left.  Coote,  on  the  other  hand, 
and  Broghill,  both  of  whom  had  acquired  immense 
estates  under  the  Cromwellian  rule,  were  amongst 
the  foremost  to  hail  the  Restoration,  and  to  secure 
their  own  interests  by  being  eager  to  welcome  the 
king.  Such  secular  vicars  of  Bray  were  not  likely  to 
suffer  whatever  king  or  government  came  uppermost. 

To  the  exiled  proprietors,  who  had  fought  for  that 
king's  father  and  for  himself,  it  naturally  seemed  that 
the  time  had  come  for  their  sufferings  and  exile  to 
end.  Now  that  the  king  had  been  restored  to  his 
own  again,  they  who  had  been  punished  for  his  sake 
should  also,  they  thought,  in  fairness,  again  enjoy 
what  had  been  theirs  before  the  war. 

Charles's  position,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  was  a 
very  difficult  one.     Late  found  as  it  was,  the  loyalty 


HENRY   CROMWELL,    LORD-LIEUTENANT   FROM    1657   TO    1660. 
{From  a  Mezzotint.) 


THE   COURT   OF  CLAIMS.  275 

of  Coote,  Broghill,  and  others  of  their  stamp  had 
been  eminently  convenient,  as  without  it  the  army  in 
Ireland  would  hardly  have  returned  to  its  allegiance. 
To  deprive  them  of  what  they  had  acquired  was  felt 
to  be  out  of  the  question,  and  the  same  argument 
applied,  with  no  little  force,  to  many  of  the  other 
newly-made  proprietors.  The  feeling,  too,  against  the 
Irish  Catholics  was  far  from  having  died  out  in  Eng- 
land, and  anything  like  a  wholesale  ejection  of  the 
new  Protestant  settlers  for  their  benefit,  would  have 
been  very  badly  received  there. 

On  the  other  hand,  decency  and  the  commonest 
sense  of  honour  required  that  something  should  be 
done.  Ormond,  who  had  been  made  a  duke,  was  at 
once  reinstated  in  his  own  lands,  with  a  handsome 
additional  slice  as  a  recompense  for  his  services,  A 
certain  number  of  other  great  proprietors  and  lords  of 
the  Pale,  a  list  of  whom  was  rather  capriciously  made 
out,  were  also  immediately  reinstated.  For  the  rest, 
more  tardy  and  less  satisfactory  justice  was  to  be 
meted. 

A  Court  of  Claims  was  set  up  in  Dublin  to  try  the 
cases  of  those  who  claimed,  during  the  late  war,  to 
have  been  upon  the  king's  side.  Those  who  could 
prove  their  entire  innocence  of  the  original  rebellion 
were  to  be  at  once  reinstated  ;  those,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  were  in  arms  before  '49,  or  who  had  been 
at  any  time  joined  to  the  party  of  Rinucini,  or  had 
held  any  correspondence,  even  accidentally,  with  that 
party,  were  to  be  excluded,  and  if  they  had  received 
lands  in  Connaught  might  stay  there  and  be  thankful. 

A  wearisome  period  of  endless  dispute,  chicanery, 


276  THE   ACT   OF  SETTLEMENT. 

and  wrangling  followed  this  decision.  As  the  soldiers 
and  adventurers  were  only  to  be  dispossessed  in  case 
of  a  sufficiency  of  reserved  lands  being  found  to 
compensate  them,  it  followed  that  the  fewer  of  the 
original  proprietors  that  could  prove  their  loyalty 
the  better  for  the  Government.  At  the  first  sitting 
of  the  Court  of  Claims  the  vast  majority  of  those 
whose  cases  were  tried  were  able  thus  to  prove  their 
innocence  ;  and  as  all  these  had  a  claim  to  be  rein- 
stated, great  alarm  was  felt,  and  a  clamour  of  indig- 
nation arose  from  the  new  proprietors,  at  which  the 
Government,  taking  alarm,  made  short  work  of  many 
of  the  remaining  claims,  whereupon  a  fresh,  and  cer- 
tainly not  less  reasonable,  clamour  was  raised  upon 
the  other  side. 

The  end  of  the  long-drawn  struggle  may  be  stated 
in  a  few  words.  The  soldiers,  adventures,  and  de- 
benture holders  agreed  at  length  to  accept  two-thirds 
of  their  land,  and  to  give  up  the  other  third,  and  on 
this  arrangement,  by  slow  degrees,  the  country  settled 
down.  As  a  net  result  of  the  whole  settlement  we 
find  that,  whereas  before  '41  the  Irish  Roman 
Catholics  had  held  two-thirds  of  the  good  land  and 
all  the  waste,  after  the  Restoration  they  held  only 
one-third  in  all,  and  this,  too,  after  more  than  two 
millions  of  acres  previously  forfeited  had  been  re- 
stored to  them. 


XLII. 

OPPRESSION   AND   COUNTER   OPPRESSION. 

No  class  of  the  community  suffered  more  severely 
from  the  effects  of  the  Restoration  than  the  Presby- 
terians of  Ulster.  The  church  party  which  had  re- 
turned to  Ireland  upon  the  crest  of  the  new  wave 
signalized  its  return  by  a  violent  outburst  of  intolerance 
directed  not  so  much  against  the  Papists  as  the  Non- 
conformists. Of  the  300,000  Protestants,  which  was 
roughly  speaking  the  number  calculated  to  be  at  that 
time  in  Ireland,  fully  a  third  were  Presbyterians, 
another  100,000  being  made  up  of  Puritans  and  other 
Nonconformists,  leaving  only  one-third  Churchmen. 
Against  the  two  former,  but  especially  against  the 
Presbyterians,  the  terrors  of  the  law  were  now  put  in 
force.  A  new  Act  of  Uniformity  was  passed,  and 
armed  with  this,  the  bishops  with  Bramhall,  the 
Primate,  at  their  head,  insisted  upon  an  acceptance 
of  the  Prayer-book  being  enforced  upon  all  who  were 
permitted  to  hold  any  benefice,  or  to  teach  or  preach 
in  any  church  or  public  place. 

The  result  was  that  the  Presbyterians  were  driv'en 
away  in  crowds  from  Ireland.  Out  of  seventy 
ministers  in   Ulster,  only  eight  accepted   the  terms 


278      OPPRESSION  AMD    COUNTER    OPPRESSION. 

and  were  ordained  ;  all  the  remainder  were  expelled, 
and  their  flocks  in  many  cases  elected  to  follow  them 
into  exile. 

This  persecution  was  the  more  monstrous  that  no 
hint  or  pretext  of  disloyalty  was  urged  against  them. 
They  had  been  planted  in  the  country  as  a  defence 
and  breakwater  against  the  Roman  Catholics,  and 
now  the  same  intolerance  which  had,  in  a  great 
measure  forced  the  latter  to  rebel,  was  in  its  turn 
being  brought  to  bear  upon  them. 

The  Roman  Catholics,  on  the  other  hand,  now 
found  themselves  indulged  to  a  degree  that  they  had 
not  experienced  for  nearly  a  century.  The  penal  laws 
at  the  special  instance  of  the  king  were  suspended  in 
their  favour.  Many  of  the  priests  returned,  and  were 
allowed  to  establish  themselves  in  their  old  churches. 
They  could  not  do  so,  however,  without  violent  alarm 
being  awakened  upon  the  other  side.  The-  Irish 
Protestants  remonstrated  angrily,  and  their  indigna- 
tion found  a  vehement  echo  in  England.  The  '41 
massacre  was  still  as  fresh  in  every  Protestant's  mind 
as  if  it  had  happened  only  the  year  before,  and  sus- 
picion of  Rome  was  a  passion  ready  at  any  moment 
to  rise  to  frenzy. 

The  heir  to  the  Crown  was  a  Papist,  and  Charles 
was  himself  strongly,  and  not  unreasonably  suspected 
of  being  secretly  one  also.  His  alliance  with  Louis 
XIV.  was  justifiably  regarded  with  the  utmost 
suspicion  and  dislike  by  all  his  Protestant  subjects.  It 
only  wanted  a  spark  to  set  this  mass  of  smouldering 
irritation  and  suspicion  into  a  flame. 

That  spark    was    afforded    by  the    murder   of  Sir 


EXECUTION   OF   DR.    PLUNKETT.  279 

Edmondbury  Godfrey,  under  circumstances  which 
were  at  first  believed  to  point  to  its  having  been 
committed  by  Papists.  A  crowd  of  perjured  wit- 
nesses, with  Titus  Gates  at  their  head,  sprang  like 
evil  birds  of  the  night  into  existence,  ready  to  swear 
away  the  lives  of  any  number  of  innocent  men.  The 
panic  flew  across  the  Channel.  Irish  Roman  Catliolics 
of  all  classes  and  ages  were  arrested  and  flung  into 
prison.  Priests  who  had  ventured  to  return  were 
ordered  to  quit  the  country  at  once.  Men  of  stainless 
honour,  whose  only  crime  was  their  faith,  were  on  no 
provocation  seized  and  subjected  to  the  most  ignomi- 
nious treatment,  and  in  several  instances  put  to  death. 

The  case  of  Dr.  Plunkett,  the  Roman  Catholic  Arch- 
bishop of  Armagh,  a  man  whom  even  Protestants 
regarded  with  the  utmost  reverence,  is  the  most  noto- 
rious of  these.  Upon  a  ridiculous  charge  of  being  im- 
plicated in  a  wholly  mythical  French  descent,  he  was 
dragged  over  to  London,  summarily  sentenced,  con- 
victed, and  hung,  drawn,  and  quartered.  Although  the 
most  eminent,  he  was  only  one,  however,  of  the 
victims  of  this  most  insane  of  panics.  Reason  seemed 
to  have  been  utterly  lost.  Blood  and  blood  alone 
could  satisfy  the  popular  craving,  and  victim  after 
victim  was  hurried,  innocent  but  unpitied,  to  his 
doom. 

At  last  the  tide  stayed.  First  slackened,  then 
suddenly — in  Ireland  at  least — reversed  itself,  and 
ran  almost  as  recklessly  and  as  violently  as  ever, 
only  in  the  opposite  direction.  In  1685  Charles  died, 
and  James  now^  king,  resolved  with  hardly  an 
attempt  at  further  concealment  to  carry  out  his  own 


28o      OPPRESSION   AND   COUNTER    OPPRESSION. 

long-cherished  plans.  From  the  beginning  of  his 
reign  his  private  determination  seems  to  have  been 
to  make  Ireland  a  stronghold  and  refuge  for  his 
Roman  Catholic  subjects,  in  order  that  by  their  aid  he 
might  make  himself  independent  both  of  England 
and  the  Parliament,  and  so  carry  out  that  despotism 
upon  which  his  whole  narrow,  obstinate  soul  was  in- 
flexibly set. 

His  first  step  was  to  recall  the  Duke  of  Ormond, 
whom  Charles  had  left  as  Viceroy,  and  to  appoint  in 
his  place  two  Lords  Justices,  Lord  Granard  and  the 
Primate  Boyle,  who  were  likely,  he  believed,  to  be 
more  malleable.  All  tests  were  to  be  immediately 
done  away  with.  Catholicism  was  no  longer  to  be  a 
disqualification  for  office,  and  Roman  Catholics  were 
to  be  appointed  as  judges.  A  more  important  change 
still,  the  army  was  to  be  entirely  remodelled  ;  Pro- 
testant officers  were  to  be  summarily  dismissed,  and 
Roman  Catholic  ones  as  summarily  put  in  their 
places. 

Such  sweeping  changes  could  not,  even  James  found, 
be  carried  out  all  at  once.  The  Lords  Justices  were 
next  dismissed,  and  his  own  brother-in-law.  Lord 
Clarendon,  sent  over  as  Lord-Lieutenant.  He  in 
turn  proving  too  timid,  or  too  constitutional,  his 
place  was  before  long  filled  by  Richard  Talbot,  a 
fervent  Catholic,  but  a  man  of  indifferent  public 
honour  and  more  than  indifferent  private  character. 
Talbot  was  created  Earl  of  Tyrconnel,  and  arrived  in 
1686  avowedly  to  carry  out  the  new  policy. 

From  this  point  the  stream  ran  fast  and  strong. 
The  recent  innovations,  especially  the  re-organization 


ALARM   OF   THE   IRISH   PROTESTANTS.  281 

of  the  army,  had  naturally  caused  immense  alarm 
amongst  the  whole  Protestant  colony.  A  petition 
drawn  out  by  the  former  proprietors  and  forwarded  to 
the  king  against  the  Act  of  Settlement  had  made  them 
tremble  also  for  their  estates,  and  now  this  new 
appointment  came  to  put  a  climax  to  their  dismay. 
What  might  not  be  expected  they  asked  in  terror, 
under  a  man  so  unscrupulous  and  so  bigoted,  with 
an  army,  too,  composed  mainly  of  Roman  Catholics 
at  his  back  to  enforce  his  orders  ?  The  depar- 
ture of  Clarendon  was  thus  the  signal  for  a  new 
Protestant  exodus.  Wild  reports  of  a  general  mas- 
sacre, one  which  was  to  surpass  the  massacre  of  '41, 
flew  through  the  land.  Terrified  people  flocked  to 
the  sea-coast  and  embarked  in  any  boat  they  could 
find  for  England.  Those  that  remained  behind  drew 
themselves  together  for  their  own  defence  within  bar- 
ricaded houses,  and  in  the  towns  in  the  north, 
especially  in  Enniskillen  and  Londonderry,  the 
Protestant  inhabitants  closed  their  gates  and  made 
ready  to  withstand  a  siege. 

Meanwhile  in  Dublin  sentences  of  outlawry  were  fast 
being  reversed,  and  the  estates  of  the  Protestants  being 
restored  in  all  directions  to  their  former  proprietors. 
The  charters  of  the  corporate  towns  were  next  revoked, 
and  new  (by  preference  Catholic)  aldermen  and 
mayors  appointed  by  the  viceroy.  All  Protestants 
^vere  ordered  to  give  up  their  arms  by  a  certain  day, 
and  to  those  who  did  not,  "  their  lives  and  goods,"  it 
was  announced,  "should  be  at  the  mercy  and  discretion 
of  the  soldiers."  These  soldiers,  now  almost  exclu- 
sively Catholic,  lived  at  free  quarters  upon  the  farms 


282       OPPRESSION   AND    COUNTER    OPPRESSION. 

and  estates  of  the  Protestants.  "  Tories,"  lately 
out  "  upon  their  keeping,"  with  prices  upon  their 
heads,  were  now  officers  in  the  king's  service.  The 
property  of  Protestants  was  seized  all  over  the 
country,  their  houses  taken  possession  of,  their  sheep 
and  cattle  slaughtered  by  hundreds  of  thousands. 
All  who  could  manage  to  escape  made  for  the  north, 
where  the  best  Protestant  manhood  of  the  country 
had  now  gathered  together,  and  was  standing  reso- 
lutely in  an  attitude  of  self-defence. 

In  England,  William  of  Orange  had  meanwhile 
landed  in  Torbay,  and  James  had  fled  precipitately  to 
France.  Tyrconnel,  who  seems  to  have  been  un- 
prepared for  this  event,  hesitated  at  first,  undecided 
what  to  do  or  how  matters  would  eventually  shape 
themselves.  He  even  wrote  to  William,  professing 
to  be  rather  favourable  than  otherwise  to  his  cause, 
,a  profession  which  the  king,  who  was  as  yet  anything 
but  firm  in  his  own  seat,  seems  to  have  listened  to  with 
some  belief,  and  General  Richard  Hamilton  was  sent 
over  by  him  to  negotiate  matters  with  the  viceroy. 

The  passions  awakened  on  both  sides  were  far 
too  strong  however,  for  any  such  temporizing. 
Louis  XIV.  had  received  James  upon  his  flight 
with  high  honour,  and  his  return  to  the  throne 
was  believed  by  his  own  adherents  to  be  immi- 
nent. In  England,  especially  in  London,  the  ex- 
citement against  the  Irish  Catholics  was  prodigious, 
and  had  been  increased  by  the  crowd  of  Protestant 
refugees  who  had  recently  poured  in.  The  Irish 
regiments  brought  to  England  by  James  had  been 
insultingly  disbanded,   and   their  officers   put    under 


LANDING   OF  JAMES  II.   AT  KIN  SALE.         283 

arrest  "  Lilibullero,"  the  anti-Catholic  street  song, 
was  sung  by  thousands  of  excited  lips.  Lord  Jefferies, 
who  embodied  in  his  own  person  all  that  the  popular 
hatred  most  detested  in  his  master's  rule,  had  been 
dragged  to  prison  amid  the  threatening  howls  of  the 
populace.  The  "  Irish  night,"  during  which — though 
without  the  faintest  shadow  of  reason — the  London 
citizens  had  fully  believed  an  Irish  mob  to  be  in 
the  act  of  marching  upon  the  town,  with  the  set  pur- 
pose of  massacring  every  Protestant  man,  woman,  and 
child  in  it,  had  worked  both  town  and  nation  to  the 
highest  possible  pitch  of  excitement.  In  Ireland  too 
the  stream  had  gone  too  far  and  too  fast  to  turn 
back.  The  minority  and  the  majority  stood  facing 
one  another  like  a  pair  of  pugilists.  The  Pro- 
testants, whose  property  had  been  either  seized  or 
wasted,  were  fast  concentrating  themselves  behind 
Lough  Foyle.  Thither  Tyrconnel  sent  Richard 
Hamilton — who,  deserting  William,  had  thrown  him- 
self upon  the  other  side — with  orders  to  reduce 
Londonderry  before  aid  could  arrive  from  Eng- 
land. To  James  himself  Tyrconnel  wrote,  urging 
him  to  start  for  Ireland  without  delay.  Though 
unprepared  at  present  to  furnish  soldiers,  Louis  was 
munificent  in  other  respects.  A  fleet  of  fourteen  men- 
of-war,  with  nine  smaller  vessels,  was  provided.  Arms, 
ammunition,  and  money  without  stint  were  placed 
at  the  command  of  the  exile,  and  a  hundred  French 
officers  with  the  Count  d'Avaux,  one  of  the  king's 
most  trusted  officials,  as  envoy,  were  sent  to  accom- 
pany the  expedition.  On  March  12,  1689,  James  II. 
landed  at  Kinsale. 


XLIII. 


WILLIAM   AND   JAMES   IN   IRELAND. 


James's  appearance  in  Ireland  was  hailed  with  a 
little  deserved  burst  of  enthusiasm.  As  a  king,  as 
a  Catholic,  and  as  a  man  in  deep  misfortune,  he 
had  a  triple  claim  upon  the  kindly  feeling  of  a  race 
never  slow  to  respond  to  such  appeals.  All  along 
the  road  from  Cork  to  Dublin  the  people  ran  out 
out  in  crowds  to  greet  him  with  tears,  blessings,  and 
cries  of  welcome.  Women  thronged  the  banks  along 
the  roadsides,  and  held  up  their  children  to  see  him 
go  by.  Flowers — as  to  the  poor  quality  of  which 
it  was  hardly  worth  Lord  Macaulay's  while,  by 
the  way,  to  speak  so  disparagingly — were  offered  for 
his  acceptance,  or  strewn  under  his  feet.  Every  mark 
of  devotion  which  a  desperately  poor  country  could 
show  was  shown  Vv'ithout  stint.  Accompanied  by 
the  French  ambassador,  amid  a  group  of  English 
exiles,  and  advancing  under  a  waving  roof  of  flags 
and  festoons,  hastily  improvised  in  his  honour,  the 
least  worthy  of  the  Stuarts  arrived  in  Dublin,  and 
took  up  his  residence  at  the  castle. 

His  sojourn  there  was  certainly  no  royal  bed  of 
roses!     The  dissensions  between  his  English  and  his 


CONFLICTING   INTERESTS.  285 

Irish  followers  were  not  only  deep,  but  ineffaceable.  By 
each  the  situation  was  regarded  solely  from  the  stand- 
point of  his  own  country.  Was  James  to  remain  in 
Ireland  and  to  be  an  Irish  king  ?  or  was  he  merely  to 
use  Ireland  as  a  stepping-stone  to  England  ?  Between 
two  such  utterly  diverse  views  no  point  of  union  was 
discoverable. 

In  the  interests  of  his  own  master,  D'Avaux,  the 
French  envoy,  strongly  supported  Tyrconnel  and  the 
Irish  leaders.  The  game  of  France  was  less  to  re- 
place James  on  the  English  throne  than  to  make  of 
Ireland  a  permanent  thorn  in  the  side  of  England. 
With  this  view  he  urged  James  to  remain  in  Dublin, 
where  he  would  necessarily  be  more  under  the  direct 
control  of  the  parliament.  James,  however  declined 
this  advice,  and  persisted  in  going  north,  where  he 
would  be  within  a  few  hours'  sail  of  Great  Britain. 
Once  Londonderry  had  fallen  (and  it  was  agreed 
upon  all  hands  that  Londonderry  could  not  hold  out 
much  longer),  he  could  at  any  moment  cross  to  Scot- 
land, where  it  was  believed  that  his  friends  would  at 
once  rally  around  him. 

But  Londonderry  showed  no  symptoms  of  yielding. 
In  April,  1689,  James  appeared  before  its  walls,  be- 
lieving that  he  had  only  to  do  so  to  receive  its  sub- 
mission. He  soon  found  his  mistake.  Lundy,  its 
governor,  was  ready  indeed  to  surrender  it  into  his 
hands,  but  the  townsfolk  declined  the  bargain,  and  shut 
their  gates  resolutely  in  the  king's  face.  Lundy  es- 
caped for  his  life  over  the  walls,  and  James,  in  disgust, 
returned  to  Dublin,  leaving  the  conduct  of  the  siege 
in  the  hands  of  Richard  Hamilton,  who  was  afterwards 


286  WILLIAM  AND   JAMES  IN  IRELAND. 

superseded  in  the  command  by  De  Rosen,  a  Muscovite 
in  the  pay  of  France,  who  prosecuted  it  with  a  bar- 
barity unknown  to  the  annals  of  civilized  warfare. 

The  tale  of  that  heroic  defence  has  been  so  told 
that  it  need  assuredly  never,  while  the  world  lasts, 
be  told  again.  Suffice  it  then  that  despite  the  false- 
ness of  its  governor,  the  weakness  of  its  walls,  the  lack 
of  any  military  training  on  the  part  of  its  defenders  ; 
despite  the  treacherous  dismissal  of  the  first  ships 
sent  to  its  assistance  ;  despite  the  long  agony  of  seeing 
other  ships  containing  provisions  hanging  inertly  at  the 
mouth  of  the  bay  ;  despite  shot  and  shell  without,  and 
famine  in  its  most  grisly  forms  within — despite  all  this 
the  little  garrison  held  gallantly  on  to  the  "  last  ounce 
of  horse-flesh  and  the  last  pinch  of  corn."  At  length, 
upon  the  105th  day  of  the  siege,  three  ships,  under 
Kirke's  command,  broke  through  the  boom  in  the 
channel,  and  brought  their  freights  in  safety  to 
the  starved  and  ghastly  defenders,  gathered  like 
ghosts,  rather  than  human  beings,  upon  the  quay, 
Three  days  later  De  Rosen  broke  up  his  camp,  and 
moved  off  in  disgust,  leaving  behind  him  the  little 
city,  exhausted  but  triumphant,  having  saved  the 
honour  of  its  walls,  and  won  itself  imperishable  fame. 

While  all  this  was  going  on  in  the  north,  James,  in 
Dublin,  had  been  busily  employed  in  deluging  the 
country  with  base  money  to  supply  his  own  necessi- 
ties, with  the  natural  result  of  ruining  all  who  were 
forced  to  accept  it.  At  the  same  time  the  Parliament 
under  his  nominal  superintendence  had  settled  down 
to  the  congenial  task  of  reversing  most  of  the  earlier 
Acts,  and  putting  everything  upon  an  entirely  new 


THE  ACT   OF  SETTLEMENT   SET  ASIDE.      2S7 

footing.  It  was  a  Parliament  composed,  as  was 
natural,  almost  wholly  of  Roman  Catholics,  only  six 
Protestants  having  been  returned.  Its  first  task  was 
to  repeal  Poynings  Act,  the  Act,  which,  it  will  be 
remembered,  was  passed  in  Henry  VII.'s  reign,  binding 
it  in  dependence  upon  the  English  Parliament.  Its  next 
to  establish  freedom  of  worship,  giving  the  Roman 
Catholic  tithes  to  the  priests.  So  far  no  objections 
could  reasonably  be  raised.  Next,  however,  followed 
the  question  of  forfeitures.  The  hated  Act  of  Settle- 
ment, upon  which  all  property  in  Ireland  was  now 
based,  was  set  aside,  and  it  was  setted  that  all  lands 
should  revert  to  their  former  proprietors.  Then  fol- 
lowed the  punishment  of  the  political  adversaries. 
"  The  hugest  Bill  of  attainder,"  says  Mr.  Green,  "  the 
world  has  seen,"  was  hastily  drawn  up  and  passed. 
By  its  provisions  over  2,240  persons  were  attained, 
and  everything  that  they  possessed  vested  in  the 
king.  Many  so  attained  were  either  women  or  young 
children,  indeed  a  large  proportion  of  the  names  seem 
to  have  been  inserted  at  haphazard  or  from  some 
merely  momentary  feeling  of  anger  or  vindictiveness. 
These  Acts  were  perhaps  only  what  is  called 
natural,  but  it  must  be  owned  that  they  were  also  ter- 
ribly unfortunate.  Up  to  that  date  those  directly  penal 
laws  against  Catholics  which  afterwards  disfigured  the 
statute  book  were  practically  unknown.  A  Catholic 
could  sit  in  either  Irish  House  of  Parliament ;  he 
could  inherit  lands,  and  bequeath  them  to  whom  he 
would  ;  he  could  educate  his  children  how  and  where 
he  liked.  The  terror  planted  in  the  breast  of  the 
Protestant  colony  by  that  inoperative  piece  of  legis 


288  WILLIAM   AND   JAMES   IN  IRELAND. 

lation  found  its  voice  in  the  equally  violent,  but 
unfortunately  not  equally  inoperative,  passed  Acts 
by  them  in  the  hour  of  their  triumph.  Acts,  by 
means  of  which  it  was  fondly  hoped  that  their  enemies 
would  be  thrown  into  such  a  position  of  dependence 
and  humiliation  that  they  could  never  again  rise  up 
to  be  a  peril. 

In  the  north  a  brilliant  little  victory  had  meanwhile 
been  won  by  the  Enniskillen  troops  under  Colonel 
•  Wolseley,  at  Newtown  Butler,  where  they  attacked  a 
much  larger  force  of  the  enemy  and  defeated  them, 
killing  a  large  number  and  driving  the  rest  back  in 
confusion.  William  was  still  detained  in  England, 
but  had  despatched  the  Duke  of  Schomberg  with 
a  considerable  force.  Schomberg's  men,  were  mostly 
raw  recruits,  and  the  climate  tried  them  severely. 
He  arrived  in  the  autumn,  but  not  venturing  to  take 
the  field,  established  himself  at  Dundalk,  where  his 
men  misbehaved  and  all  but  mutinied,  and  where,  a 
pestilence  shortly  afterwards  breaking  out,  swept  them 
away  in  multitudes. 

On  both  sides,  indeed,  the  disorganization  of  the 
armies  was  great.  Fresh  reinforcements  had  arrived 
for  James,  under  the  Comte  de  Lauzan,  in  return  for 
which  an  equal  number  of  Irish  soldiers  under  Colonel 
Macarthy  had  been  drafted  for  service  to  France.  In 
June,  1690,  William  himself  landed  at  Carrickfergus 
with  an  army  of  35,000  men,  composed  of  nearly 
every  nationality  in  Europe — Swedes,  Dutch,  Swiss, 
Batavians,  French  Huguenots,  Finns,  with  about 
15,000  English  soldiers.  He  came  up  to  James's  army 
upon  the  banks  of  the  Boyne,  about   twenty  miles 


BATTLE   OF   THE   BOYNE.  289 

from  Dublin,  and  here  it  was  that  the  turning  battle 
of  the  campaign  was  fought. 

This  battle  James  watched  at  a  discreet  distance 
from  the  hill  of  Donore.  The  Irish  foot,  upon 
whom  the  brunt  of  the  action  fell,  were  untrained, 
indifferently  armed,  and  had  never  before  been  in 
action  ;  their  opponents  were  veterans  trained  in 
European  wars.  They  were  driven  back,  fled,  and 
a  considerable  number  of  them  slaughtered.  The 
Irish  cavalry  stood  firm,  but  their  valour  was  power- 
less to  turn  the  day.  Schomberg  was  killed,  but 
William  remained  absolute  and  undisputed  master  of 
the  field. 

At  the  first  shock  of  reverse  James  flew  down  the 
hill  and  betook  himself  to  Dublin.  He  arrived  there 
foaming  and  almost  convulsed  with  rage.  "  Madam, 
your  countrymen  have  run  away  !  "  was  his  gracious 
address  to  Lady  Tyrconnel.  "  If  they  have,  sire,  your 
Majesty  seems  to  have  won  the  race,"  was  that  lady's 
ready  retort. 

The  king's  flight  was  without  reason  or  measure. 
As  before  in  England,  so  now,  he  seemed  to  pass  in 
a  moment  from  insane  self-confidence  to  an  equally 
insane  panic.  He  fled  south,  ordering  the  bridges  to 
be  broken  down  behind  him  ;  took  boat  at  Waterford, 
and  never  rested  until  he  found  himself  once  more 
safe  upon  French  soil. 

His  flight  at  least  left  the  field  clear  for  better 
men.  Patrick  Sarsfield  now  took  the  principal 
command,  and  prosecuted  the  campaign  with  a 
vigour  of  which  it  had  hitherto  shown  no  symptoms. 
Sarsfield    is    the    one    redeeming    figure    upon    the 


290  WILLIAM  AND   JAMES   IN  IRELAND. 

Jacobite  side.  His  gallant  presence  sheds  a  ray  of 
chivalric  light  upon  this  otherwise  gloomiest  and  least 
attractive  of  campaigns.  He  could  not  turn  defeat  to 
victory,  but  he  could,  and  did  succeed  in  snatching 
honour  out  of  that  pit  into  which  the  other  leaders,  and 
especially  his  master,  had  let  it  drop.  Brave,  honour- 
able, upright,  "  a  gentleman  of  eminent  merit,"  is 
praise  which  even  those  least  inclined  to  favour  his 
side  of  the  quarrel  bestow  upon  him  without  stint. 

William,  now  established  in  Dublin,  issued  a  procla- 
mation offering  full  and  free  pardon  to  all  who  would 
lay  down  their  arms.  He  was  genuinely  anxious  to  avoid 
pushing  the  struggle  to  the  bitter  end,  and  to  hinder 
further  bloodshed.  Though  deserted  by  their  king, 
and  fresh  from  overwhelming  defeat,  the  Irish  troops 
showed  no  disposition,  however,  of  yielding.  Athlone, 
Galway,  Cork,  Kinsale,  and  Limerick  still  held  out, 
and  behind  the  walls  of  the  last  named  the  remains 
of  James's  broker!  army  was  now  chiefly  collected. 
Those  walls,  however,  were  miserably  weak,  and  the 
French  generals  utterly  scouted  the  possibility  of 
their  being  held,  Tyrconnel,  too,  advised  a  capitu- 
lation, but  Sarsfield  insisted  upon  holding  the  town, 
and  the  Irish  soldiers — burning  to  wipe  out  the  shame 
of  the  Boyne — supported  him  like  one  man.  William 
was  known,  to  be  moving  south  to  the  attack,  and 
accordingly  Lauzan  and  Tyrconnel,  with  the  rest  of 
the  French  troops  moved  hastily  away  to  Galway, 
leaving  Sarsfield  to  defend  Limerick  as  he  could. 

They  had  hardly  left  before  William's  army  ap- 
peared in  sight  with  the  king  himself  at  their  head, 
and  drew  up  before  the   walls.     A  formidable  siege 


SIEGE   OF  LIMERICK.  291 

train,  sent  after  him  from  Dublin,  was  to  follow  in  a 
day  or  two.  Had  it  arrived  it  would  have  finished 
the  siege  at  once.  Sarsfield  accordingly  slipped  out 
of  the  town  under  cover  of  night,  fell  upon  it  while 
it  was  on  its  way  through  the  Silvermine  Hills 
in  Tipperary,  killed  some  sixty  of  the  men  who  were 
in  charge,  and  filling  the  cannons  with  powder,  burst 
them  with  an  explosion  which  startled  the  country 
round  for  miles,  and  the  roar  of  which  is  said  to  have 
reached  William  in  his  camp  before  Limerick. 

This  brilliant  little  feat  delayed  the  siege.  Never- 
theless it  was  pressed  on  with  great  vigour.  Two 
more  guns  were  obtained,  several  of  the  outworks 
carried,  and  a  breach  began  to  show  in  the  ram- 
parts. It  was  now  autumn,  the  rainy  season  was 
setting  in,  and  William's  presence  was  urgently  wanted 
in  England.  After  another  violent  attempt,  therefore, 
to  take  the  town,  which  was  resisted  with  the  most 
desperate  valour,  the  very  women  joining  in  the  fight, 
and  remaining  under  the  hottest  fire,  the  besiegers 
drew  off,  and  William  shortly  afterwards  sailed  for 
England,  leaving  the  command  in  the  hands  of  Ginkel, 
the  ablest  of  his  Dutch  generals. 

This  first  siege  of  Limerick  is  in  many  respects 
a  very  remarkable  one,  and  bears  a  close  analog}- 
to  the  yet  more  famous  siege  of  Londonderry.  To 
give  the  parallel  in  Lord  Macaulay's  words — "The 
southern  city,"  he  says  "  was,  like  the  northern  city, 
the  last  asylum  of  a  Church  and  of  a  nation.  BoJ:h 
places  were  crowded  by  fugitives  from  all  parts  of 
Ireland.  Both  places  appeared  to  men  who  had  made 
a  regular  study  of  the  art  of  war  incapable  of  resisting 


292  WILLIAM  AND   JAMES   IN  IRELAND. 

an  enemy.  ...  In  both  cases,  religious  and  patriotic 
enthusiasm  struggled  unassisted  against  great  odds  ; 
in  both  cases,  religious  and  patriotic  enthusiasm  did 
what  veteran  warriors  had  pronounced  it  absurd  to 
attempt." 

In  Galway,  meanwhile,  violent  quarrels  had  broken 
out.  The  French  troops  were  sick,  naturally  enough, 
of  the  campaign,  and  not  long  afterwards  sailed 
for  France.  Their  places  were  taken  later  on  by 
another  body  of  French  soldiers  under  General  St. 
Ruth.  St.  Ruth  was  a  man  of  cold,  disdainful  tem- 
perament, but  a  good  officer.  He  at  once  set  to 
work  at  the  task  of  restoring  order  and  getting  the 
army  into  a  condition  to  take  the  field.  Early  in 'the 
spring  Ginkel  had  collected  his  army  in  Mullingar 
ready  to  march  to  the  assault  of  Athlone,  the  ancient 
Norman  fortress,  upon  the  bank  of  the  Shannon,  which 
was  here  spanned  by  a  single  bridge.  Upon  Ginkel's 
advance  this  bridge  was  broken  down,  and  the  besieged 
and  besiegers  were  separated  therefore  by  the  breadth 
of  the  river.  After  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  repair 
the  breach  the  Dutch  general  resolved  to  ford  the 
latter.  As  it  happened  the  water  was  unusually  low, 
and  although  St.  Ruth  with  a  large  force  was  at  the 
time  only  a  mile  away,  he,  unaccountably,  made  no 
attempt  to  defend  the  ford.  A  party  of  Ginkel's 
men  waded  or  swam  across  in  the  dark,  caught  the 
broken  end  of  the  bridge,  and  held  it  till  it  was 
repaired.  This  done,  the  whole  English  army  poured 
across  the  river. 

The  struggle  was    now  narrowing  fast.       Leaving 
Athlone   Ginkel    advanced    to    Ballinasloe,    so    well- 


BATTLE   OF   AUGHRTM.  2g3 

known  now  from  its  annual  sheep  fairs.  The  country 
here  is  all  but  a  dead  flat,  but  the  French  general 
took  advantage  of  some  rising  ground  on  the  slope 
of  which  stood  the  ruined  castle  of  Aughrim.  Here 
the  Irish  were  posted  by  him  in  force,  one  of  those 
deep  brown  bogs  which  cover  so  much  of  the  surface 
of  Galway  lying  at  their  feet  and  surrounding  them 
upon  two  sides. 

The  battle  which  broke  at  five  o'clock  the  next 
morning  was  a  desperate  one.  Roused  at  last 
from  his  coldness  St.  Ruth  appealed  in  the  most 
moving  terms  to  the  officers  and  men  to  fight  for 
their  religion,  their  liberties,  their  honour.  His  appeal 
was  gallantly  responded  to.  A  low  stone  breast-work 
had  been  raised  upon  the  hillside  in  front  of  the  Irish, 
and  against  this  Ginkel's  veterans  again  and  again 
advanced  to  the  attack,  and  again  and  again  were 
beaten  back,  broken  and,  in  one  instance,  chased 
down  the  hill  on  to  the  plain.  St.  Ruth  broke  into 
vehement  enthusiasm.  "  The  day,"  he  cried,  waving 
his  hat  in  th?  air,  "is  ours,  gentlemen  !"  A  party  of 
Huguenot  cavalry,  however,  were  presently  seen  to  be 
advancing  across  the  bog  so  as  to  turn  the  flank  of  the 
Irish  army.  It  seemed  to  be  impossible  that  they 
could  get  through,  but  the  ground  was  firmer  than  at 
first  appeared,  and  some  hurdles  thrown  down  in  front 
of  them  formed  a  sort  of  rude  causeway.  St.  RuUi 
flew  to  the  point  of  danger.  On  his  way  he  was  struck 
by  a  cannon  ball  which  carried  off  his  head,  and  the 
army  was  thus  left  without  a  general.  Sarsfield  was 
at  some  distance  with  the  reserve.  There  was  no  one 
to   give  any  orders.     The    breast-work  was    carried. 


294  WILLIAM   AND   JAMES   IN   IRELAND. 

The  Irish  fought  doggedly,  retreating  slowly  from 
enclosure  to  enclosure.  At  last,  left  to  themselves 
with  no  one  to  direct  or  support  them,  they  broke 
and  fled  down  the  hill.  Then  followed  a  hideous 
butchery.  Few  or  no  prisoners  were  taken,  and 
the  number  of  the  slain  is  stated  to  have  been  "  in 
proportion  to  the  number  engaged  greater  than  in 
any  other  battle  of  that  age,"  An  eye-witness  who 
looked  from  the  hill  the  next  day  said  that  the 
country  for  miles  around  was  whitened  with  the 
naked  bodies  of  the  slain.  It  looked,  he  remarked 
with  grim  vividness,  like  an  immense  pasture  covered 
with  flocks  of  sheep  ! 


INITIAL   LETTER   FROM   THE   BOOK  OF   KELLS. 


XLIV. 

THE   TREATY   OF   LIMERICK. 

Nothing  was  now  left  but  Limerick.  Galway 
had  yielded  immediately  after  the  day  of  Aughrim, 
its  garrison  claiming  and  obtaining  the  right  of  march- 
ing out  with  all  the  honours  of  war.  Tyrconnel  was 
dying,  and  had  long  lost,  too,  what  little  reputa- 
tion he  had  ever  had  as  a  soldier.  Sarsfield,  how- 
ever, stood  firm  to  the  last.  Fresh  reinforcements 
were  hoped  for  from  France,  but  none  came  until  too 
late  to  be  of  any  use.  The  town  was  again  invested 
and  besieged.  An  English  fleet  held  the  mouth 
of  the  Shannon  so  as  to  prevent  any  relief  from 
coming  to  its  aid.  From  the  middle  of  August  to 
the  end  of  September  the  siege  went  on,  and  the 
walls,  always  weak,  were  riddled  with  shot  and  shell. 
Still  it  showed  no  symptoms  of  submission.  Ginkel, 
who  was  in  command  of  William's  army,  dreaded 
the  approach  of  autumn,  and  had  instructions  from 
his  master  to  finish  the  campaign  as  rapidly  as 
possible,  and  with  this  end  in  view  to  offer  good  and 
honourable  terms  to  the  Irish.  An  armistice  accord- 
ingly was  agreed  to  for  three  days,  and  before  the 
three  days  ended  the  famous  "  Articles  of   Limerick  " 


296  THE    TREATY  OF  LIMERICK. 

were  drawn  up  and  signed  by  Sarsfield  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  Lords  Justices,  who  had  just  arrived 
in  camp  from  Dubhn,  on  the  other. 

The  exact  purport  of  these  articles,  and  the  extent 
to  which  they  were  afterwards  mutilated  and  perverted 
from  their  original  meaning  has  been  hotly  disputed, 
and  is  too  large  and  complicated  a  question  to  enter 
into  here  at  any  length.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  they 
engaged  that  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ireland  should 
enjoy  the  same  pri  vileges  as  they  had  previously  enjoyed 
in  the  reign  of  Charles  II, ;  that  they  should  be  free  to 
follow  the  same  trades  and  professions  as  before  the  war, 
and  that  all  who  were  in  arms,  having  a  direct  com- 
mission from  King  James,  "  with  all  such  as  ivere 
binder  theh'  protection"  should  have  a  free  pardon  and 
be  left  in  undisputed  ownership  of  their  lands  and 
other  possessions. 

It  is  over  the  clause  placed  in  italics  that  con- 
troversy has  waxed  fiercest.  That  it  was  in  the  first 
draft  is  admitted  ;  that  it  was  not  in  the  document 
itself  is  equally  certain.  Had  it  been  intentionally  or 
accidentally  excluded  }  is  the  question.  William's 
own  words  were  that  it  had  been  "  casually  omitted 
by  the  writer."  The  evidence  seems  clear,  yet  his- 
torians, who  on  other  matters  would  hardly  question 
his  accuracy,  seem .  to  think  that  in  this  instance  he 
was  mistaken.  That  his  own  mind  was  clear  on  the 
point  there  can  be  little  doubt,  seeing  that  he  made  the 
most  honourable  efforts  to  get  the  clause  in  question 
carried  into  effect.  In  this  he  failed.  Public  opinion 
in  England  ran  furiously  against  the  Irish  Catholics, 
and   the  Parliament  absolutely    refused    to  ratify   it. 


THE   MILITARY   TREATY.  297 

The  essential  clause  was  accordingly  struck  out,  and 
the  whole  treaty  soon  became  an  absolute  dead  letter. 

On  the  other  hand,themilitaryone,  which  was  drawn 
up  at  the  same  time  and  signed  by  the  two  generals, 
was  carried  honourably  into  effect.  By  its  terms 
it  was  agreed  that  such  Irish  officers  and  soldiers  as 
desired  to  go  to  France  should  be  conveyed  there,  and 
in  the  meantime  should  remain  under  the  command  of 
their  own  officers.-  Ginkel  made  strenuous  efforts  to 
enlist  the  Irish  troops  in  his  master's  service.  Few, 
however,  agreed  to  accept  his  offer.  A  day  was  fixed 
for  the  election  to  be  made,  and  the  Irish  troops  were 
passed  in  review.  All  who  would  take  service  with 
William  were  directed  to  file  off  at  a  particular  spot ; 
all  who  passed  it  were  held  to  have  thrown  in  their 
lot  with  France.  The  long  procession  was  watched 
with  keen  interest  by  the  group  of  generals  looking 
on,  but  the  decision  was  not  long  delayed.  The  vast 
majority  unhesitatingly  elected  exile,  only  about  a 
thousand  agreeing  to  take  service  with  William. 

The  most  piteous  part  of  the  story  remains.  Sars- 
field,  with  the  soldiers  under  him  who  had  elected  to 
go  to  France,  withdrew  into  Limerick,  and  the  next 
day  proceeded  to  Cork,  where  they  were  to. embark. 
The  news  had,  in  the  meanwhile,  spread,  and  the 
jToads  were  covered  with  women  rushing  to  see  the  last 
of  husbands,  brothers,  sons.  Wives,  mothers,  and 
children  followed  the  departing  exiles  to  the  water's 
edge,  imploring  with  cries  of  agony  not  to  be  left 
behind.  In  the  extremity  of  his  pity  Sarsfield  pro- 
claimed that  his  soldiers  might  take  their  wives  and 
families  with  them  to  France.     It  was  found  utterly 


298 


THE   TREATY  OF  LIMERICK. 


impossible,  however,  to  do  so,  since  no  transport 
could  be  provided  for  such  a  multitude.  Room  was 
found  for  a  few  families,  but  the  beach  was  still 
crowded  with  those  who  had  perforce  to  be  left 
behind.  As  the  boats  pushed  off  the  women  clung 
desperately  to  them,  and  several,  refusing  to  let  go, 
were  dragged  out  of  their  depth  and  drowned.  A 
wild  cry  went  up  as  the  ships  began  to  move.  The 
crowd  rushed  frantically  along  the  shore  from  head- 
land to  head^and,  following  them  with  their  eyes  as 
long  as  they  remained  in  sight.  When  the  last  ship 
had  dropped  below  the  horizon,  and  the  dull  autumn 
dusk  had  settled  down  over  sea  and  shore,  they  dis- 
persed slowly  to  their  desolate  homes.  Night  and 
desolation  must  indeed  have  seemed  to  have  settled 
down  for  good  upon  Ireland. 


XLV. 


THE    PENAL   CODE. 


We  are  now  upon  the  brink  of  a  century  as  full  of 
strange  fortunes  for  Ireland  as  any  that  had  preceded 
it,  but  in  which  those  fortunes  were  destined  to  take 
a  widely  different  turn.  In  the  two  preceding  ones 
revolts  and  risings  had,  as  we  have  seen,  been  the 
rule  rather  than  the  exception.  In  this  one  from  the 
beginning  down  to  within  a  couple  of  years  of  its 
close  when  a  rebellion — which,  in  most  impartial 
historians'  opinion,  might  with  a  little  care  have  been 
averted — broke  the  peace  of  the  century,  hardly  a 
symptom  of  any  disposition  to  appeal  to  arms  is 
discoverable.  Two  great  Jacobite  risings  convulsed 
England  ;  the  American  revolt,  so  fraught  with 
momentous  consequences,  was  fought  and  carried, 
but  Ireland  never  stirred.  The  fighting  element  was 
'gone.  It  was  in  France,  in  Spain,  in  the  Low  Countries 
— scattered  over  half  the  battlefields  of  Europe.  The 
country  which  gave  birth  to  these  fighters  was  quiet  ; 
a  graveyard  quiet,  it  may  be  said,  but  still  significant, 
if  only  by  contrast  with  what  had  gone  before. 

One  advantage  which  the  student  of  this  century 
has  over  others  is  that  it  has  been  made  the  subject 
of  a  work  which  enables  us  to  thread  our  way  through 


300  THE  PENAL    CODE. 

its  mazes  with  what,  in  comparison  to  other  periods 
may  be  called  ease.  In  his  "  History  of  the  Eigh- 
teenth Century"  Mr.  Lecky  has  done  for  the  Ireland 
of  one  century  what  it  is  much  to  be  desired  some 
one  would  hasten  to  do  for  the  Ireland  of  all.  He 
has  broken  down  a  barrier  of  prejudice  so  solid 
and  of  such  long  standing  that  it  seemed  to  be  in- 
vulnerable, and  has  proved  that  it  is  actually  possible 
to  be  just  in  two  directions  at  once — a  feat  no 
previous  historian  of  Ireland  can  be  said  to  have  even 
attempted.  This  work,  the  final  volume  of  which 
has  not  yet  appeared,  so  completely  covers  the  whole 
ground  that  it  seems  to  afford  an  excuse  for  an  even 
more  hasty  scamper  over  the  same  area  than  the 
exigencies  of  space  have  elsewhere  made  inevitable. 

The  task  to  which  both  the  English  and  the  Irish 
Parliaments  now  energetically  addressed  themselv^es 
was— firstly,  the  undoing  of  the  Acts  passed  in  the  late 
reign  ;  secondly,  the  forfeiture  of  the  estates  of  those 
who  had  taken  the  losing  side  in  the  late  campaign  ; 
thirdly,  the  passing  of  a  series  of  Acts  the  aim  of 
which  was  as  far  as  possible  to  stamp  out  the  Roman 
Catholic  religion  altogether,  and  in  any  case  to 
deprive  it  of  any  shadow  or  semblance  of  future 
political  importance. 

To  describe  at  length  the  various  Acts  which  make 
up  what  is  known  as  the  Penal  code — "a  code  impos- 
sible," as  Mr.  Lecky  observed  in  an  earlier  work,  "  for 
any  Irish  Protestant  whose  mind  is  not  wholly  per- 
verted by  religious  bigotry,  to  look  back  at  without 
shame  and  indignation,"  would  take  too  long.  It 
will  be  enough,  therefore,   if  I   describe  its  general 


STATE    "BOYCOTTING."  3OI 

purport,  and  how  it  affected  the  pohtical  and  social 
life  of  that  century  upon  which  we  are  now  entering. 
In  several  respects  it  not  a  little  resembled  what  is 
nowadays  known  as  "  boycotting,"  only  it  was  boy- 
cotting inflicted  by  the  State  itself  As  compared 
with  some  of  the  enactments  passed  against  Protes- 
tants in  Catholic  countries,  it  was  not,  it  must  be  said, 
sanguinary,  but  its  aim  seemed  to  be  to  make  life  itself 
intolerable  ;  to  reduce  the  whole  Catholic  population 
to  the  condition  of  pariahs  and  outcasts.  No  Papist 
might  possess  a  horse  of  the  value  of  over  ^^5  ;  no 
Papist  might  carry  arms  ;  no  Papist  might  dispose 
as  he  chose  of  his  own  property  ;  no  Papist  might 
acquire  any  landed  freehold  ;  no  Papist  might  prac- 
tise in  any  of  the  liberal  professions  ;  no  Papist  might 
educate  his  sons  at  home,  neither  might  he  send  them 
to  be  educated  abroad.  Deeper  wrong,  more  biting 
and  terrible  injury  even  than  these,  it  sowed  bitter 
strife  between  father  and  son,  and  brother  and  brother. 
Any  member  of  a  family,  by  simply  turning  Protestant, 
could  dispossess  the  rest  of  that  family  of  the  bulk  of 
the  estate  to  his  own  advantage.  Socially,  too,  a  Papist, 
no  matter  what  his  rank,  stood  below,  and  at  the 
mercy  of,  his  Protestant  neighbours.  He  was  treated 
by  the  executive  as  a  being  devoid,  not  merely  of  all 
political,  but  of  all  social  rights,  and  only  the  numerical 
superiority  of  the  members  of  the  persecuted  creed 
can  have  enabled  them  to  carry  on  existence  under 
such  circumstances  at  all. 

For  it  must  be  remembered  (and  this  is  one  of  its 
worst  features)  that  those  placed  under  this  monstrous 
ban  constituted  the  vast  majority  of  the  whole  countr}- 


302  THE    PENAL    CODE. 

In  Burke's  memorable  words,  "This  system  of  penalty 
and  incapacity  has  for  its  object  no  small  sect  or 
obscure  party,  but  a  very  numerous  body  of  men,  a 
body  which  comprehends  at  least  two-thirds  of  the 
whole  nation  ;  it  amounts  to  two  million  eight  hun- 
dred thousand  souls — a  number  sufficient  for  the 
constituents  of  a  great  people."  ^  "  The  happiness 
or  misery  of  multitudes,"  he  adds  in  another  place, 
"  can  never  be  a  thing  indifferent.  A  law  against 
the  majority  of  the  people  is  in  substance  a  law 
against  the  people  itself ;  its  extent  determines 
its  invalidity  ;  it  even  changes  its  character  as  it 
enlarges  its  operation  ;  it  is  not  particular  injustice, 
but  general  oppression,  and  can  no  longer  be  con- 
sidered as  a  private  hardship  which  might  be  borne, 
but  spreads  and  grows  up  into  the  unfortunate 
importance  of  a  national  calamity." 

As  was  natural  under  the  circumstances,  many 
feigned  conversions  took  place,  that  being  the  only 
way  to  avoid  been  utterly  cut  adrift  from  public 
life.  For  by  a  succession  of  enactments,  not  only 
were  the  higher  offices  and  the  professions  debarred 
to  Roman  Catholics,  but  they  were  even  prohibited 
— to  so  absurd  a  length  can  panic  go — from  being 
sheriffs,  jurymen,  constables,  or  even  gamekeepers. 
"  Every  barrister,  clerk,  attorney,  or  solicitor,"  to 
quote  again  Burke,  "  is  obliged  to  take  a  solemn 
oath  not  to  employ  persons  of  that  persuasion;  no,, 
not  as  hackney  clerks,  at  the  miserable  salary  of 
seven  shillings  a  \yeek."  It  was  loudly  complained  of 
many  years  later,  that  men  used  to  qualify  for  taking 
'  "  Tracts  on  tlie  Popery  Laws." 


NON-ENFORCEMENT   OF   PENALTIES.  303 

the  oaths  required  upon  bcin^^  admitted  as  barristers 
or  attorneys  by  attending  church  and  receiving  a 
sacramental  certificate  on  their  road  to  Dublin.  Others, 
to  save  their  property  from  confiscation,  sacrificed 
their  inclinations,  often  what  they  held  to  be  their 
hopes  of  salvation,  to  the  exigencies  of  the  situation, 
and  nominally  embraced  Protestantism.  Old  Lady 
Thomond,  for  instance,  upon  being  reproached  by 
some  stricter  co-religionist  for  thus  imperilling  her 
soul,  asked  with  quick  scorn  whether  it  was  not 
better  that  one  old  woman  should  burn  than  that  the 
Thomonds  should  lose  their  own.  The  head  of  the 
house  would  thus  often  present  himself  or  herself  at 
the  parish  church,  while  the  other  members  of  the 
family  kept  to  the  old  faith,  and  the  chaplain,  under 
the  name  of  the  tutor  or  secretary,  celebrated  mass 
in  the  harness- room  or  the  servants'  hall. 

To  the  credit  of  Irish  Protestants  it  may  be  said 
that,  once  the  first  violence  of  fanaticism  had  died 
out,  there  was  little  attempt  to  enforce  the  legal 
enactments  in  all  their  hideous  atrocity.  According  to 
the  strict  letter  of  the  law,  no  Roman  Catholic  bishop, 
archbishop,  or  other  dignitary  ;  no  monk,  nun,  or 
member  of  any  religious  fraternity,  could  set  foot  in 
Ireland  ;  and  any  one  who  harboured  them  was  liable 
at  the  third  offence  to  confiscation  of  all  his  goods.  A 
list  of  parish  priests  was  also  drawn  up  and  certified, 
and  their  names  entered,  and  when  these  had  died  no 
others  were  by  law  allowed  to  come,  any  so  doing 
being  liable  to  the  penalties  of  high  treason.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  however,  they  came  with  very  little 
hindrance,  and  the  succession   was  steadily  kept  up 


304  THE   PENAL    CODE. 

from  the  Continent.  The  attempt  to  stamp  out  a 
rehgion  by  force  proved  to  be  the  most  absolute  of 
failures,  although,  as  no  rule  is  without  its  exception, 
it  must  be  added  that  in  England,  where  exactly 
the  same  penal  laws  were  in  force,  and  where  the 
number  of  Roman  Catholics  was  at  the  beginning  of 
the  century  considerable,  they  dwindled  by  the  end  of 
it  almost  to  the  point  of  extinction.  In  Ireland 
the  reverse  was  the  case.  The  number  of  Roman 
Catholics,  according  to  the  most  trustworthy  statistics, 
increased  rather  than  diminished  under  the  Penal 
code,  and  there  were  many  more  conversions  from 
Protestantism  to  Catholicism  than  there  were  the 
other  way. 

This,  no  doubt,  was  in  great  measure  due  to  the 
neglect  with  which  the  scattered  Protestant  com- 
munities were  treated,  especially  in  the  south  and 
west.  The  number  of  Protestant  clergymen  was 
extremely  small,  as  many  as  six,  seven,  and  even  ten 
livings  being  frequently  held  by  a  single  individual, 
and  of  these  many  were  absentees,  and  their  place 
filled  by  a  curate.  Thus — isolated  in  a  vast  Roman 
Catholic  community,  often  with  no  church  of  their  own 
within  reach — the  few  Protestants  drifted  by  a  natural 
law  to  the  faith  of  their  neighbours.  On  the  emphatic 
and  angry  testimony  of  Archbishop  Boulter,  we  know 
that  conversions  from  Protestantism  to  Catholicism 
were  in  his  time  extremely  common  amongst  the 
lower  orders.  By  law,  too,  no  marriage  between  a 
Protestant  and  Catholic  was  recognizable,  yet  there 
were  many  such,  and  the  children  in  most  cases  seem 
to  have  reverted  to  the  elder  faith. 


"tiger"    ROCHE,  A  FAMOUS  IRISH  DUELIST,  BORN    IN  DUBLIN  1729. 


3o6  THE   PENAL    CODE. 

The  best  side  of  all  this  for  the  Catholics  showed 
itself  in  that  feeling  of  devotion  and  fealty  to  their 
own  faith  which  persecution  rarely  fails  to  awaken, 
and  for  which  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ireland,  high 
and  low  alike,  have  always  been  honourably  distin- 
guished. The  worst  was  that  this  sense  of  being 
under  an  immoveable  ban  sapped  at  all  the  roots  of 
manliness  and  honourable  ambition.  Amongst  the 
well-to-do  classes  the  more  spirited  of  the  young  men 
went  abroad  and  enlisted  under  foreign  banners. 
The  rest  stayed  at  home,  and  fell  into  an  idle,  aimless, 
often  disreputable,  fashion  of  existence.  The  sense 
of  being  of  no  account,  mere  valueless  items  in  the 
social  hive,  is  no  doubt  answerable  for  a  good  deal 
of  all  this.  Swift  assures  us  that  in  his  time  the 
Catholic  manhood  of  Ireland  were  of  no  more  im- 
portance than  its  women  and  children  ;  of  no  more 
importance,  he  adds  in  another  place,  than  so  many 
trees.  With  a  patience  pathetic  in  so  essentially 
impatient  a  race,  both  priests  and  people  seem  to 
have  settled  down  after  awhile  into  a  sort  of  desperate 
acceptance  of  the  inevitable.  So  complete  indeed 
was  their  submission  that  towards  the  close  of  the 
century  we  find  the  English  executive,  harassed  and 
set  at  nought  by  its  own  Protestant  colonists,  turning 
by  a  curious  nemesis  to  the  members  of  this  perse- 
cuted creed,  whose  patience  and  loyalty  three  quarters 
of  a  century  of  unexampled  endurance  seemed  to  have 
gone  far  to  prove 


XLVI. 


THE    COMMERCIAL    CODE. 


Alt  power,  place,  and  authority  had  thus  once 
more  swung  round  into  the  hands  of  the  Protestant 
colony — "  The  Protestant  Ascendency,"  as  it  came 
after  a  while  to  be  called.  They  alone  had  seats  in 
Parliament,  they  alone,  until  near  the  end  of  the 
century,  were  competent  to  vote.  Taxes  were  col- 
lected over  the  whole  island,  but  only  Protestants 
had  a  voice  in  their  disposal.  All  the  parliamentary 
struggles  of  this  century,  it  must  clearly  be  understood, 
were  struggles  between  Protestants  and  Protestants, 
and  the  different  political  parties,  "  patriotic  "  and 
others,  were  parties  formed  exclusively  amongst  the 
Protestants  themselves.  Protestantism  was  not  only 
the  privileged,  but  it  was  also  the  polite,  creed  ;  the 
creed  of  the  upper  classes,  as  distinguished  from  the 
creed  of  the  potato-diggers  and  the  turf-cutters  ;  a 
view  of  the  matter  of  which  distinct  traces  may  even 
yet  be  discovered  in  Ireland. 

If  Protestants,  as  compared  with  their  Roman 
Catholic  brethren,  were  happy,  the  Protestant  colony 
was  very  far  from  being  allowed  its  own  way,  or 
permitted  to  govern  itself  as  it  thought  fit.    Although 


3o8  THE   COMMERCIAL    CODE. 

avowedly  kept  as  her  garrison,  and  to  preserve  her 
own  power  in  Ireland,  England  had  no  notion  of 
allowing  it  equal  advantages  with  herself,  or  of  running 
the  smallest  risk  of  its  ever  coming  to  stand  upon 
any  dangerous  footing  of  equality.  The  fatal  theory 
that  it  was  the.  advantage  of  the  one  country  that  the 
other  should  be  kept  poor,  had  by  this  time  firmly 
taken  root  in  the  minds  of  English  statesmen,  and  to 
it,  and  to  the  unreasonable  jealousy  of  a  certain 
number  of  English  traders,  the  disasters  now  to  be 
recorded  were  mainly  due. 

Cromwell  had  placed  English  and  Irish  commerce 
upon  an  equal  footing.  Early  in  Charles  II.'s  reign 
an  Act  had  however  been  passed  to  hinder  the 
importation  of  Irish  cattle  into  England,  one  which 
had  struck  a  disastrous,  not  to  say  fatal,  blow  at  Irish 
agricultural  interests.  Then  as  now  cattle  was  its 
chief  wealth,  and  such  a  prohibition  meant  nothing 
short  of  ruin  to  the  landowners,  and  through  them  to 
all  who  depended  upon  them.  So  far  Irish  ports 
were  open,  however,  to  foreign  countries,  and  when 
the  cattle  trade  ceased  to  be  profitable,  much  of  the 
land  had  been  turned  by  its  owners  into  sheepwalks. 
There  was  a  large  and  an  increasing  demand  for  Irish 
wool  upon  the  Continent,  in  addition  to  which  a 
considerable  number  of  manufacturers  had  of  late 
started  factories,  and  an  energetic  manufacture  of 
woollen  goods  was  going  on,  and  rapidly  becoming 
the  principal  form  of  Irish  industry.  The  English 
traders,  struck  by  this  fact,  were  suddenly  smitten 
with  panic.  The  Irish  competition,  they  declared, 
were  reducing  their  gains,  and  they  cried  loudly,  there- 


SMUGGLING.  309 

fore,  for  legislative  protection.  Their  prayer  was 
granted.  In  1699,  the  last  year  of  the  century,  an 
Act  was  passed  forbidding  the  export  of  Irish  woollen 
goods,  not  to  England  alone,  but  to  «// other  countries. 

The  effect  of  this  Act  was  instantaneous  and 
startling.  The  manufacturers,  who  had  come  over  in 
large  numbers,  left  the  country  for  the  most  part 
within  six  months,  never  to  return  again.  A  whole 
population  was  suddenly  thrown  out  of  employment. 
Emigration  set  in,  but,  in  spite  of  the  multitude  that 
left,  famine  laid  hold  of  many  of  those  who  remained. 
The  resources  of  the  poorest  classes  are  always  so 
low  in  Ireland  that  a  much  less  sweeping  blow  than 
this  would  at  any  time  have  sufficed  to  bring  them 
over  the  verge  of  starvation. 

Another  important  result  was  that  smuggling 
immediately  began  on  an  enormous  scale.  Wool 
was  now  a  drug  in  the  legitimate  market,  and  woollen 
goods  had  practically  no  market.  A  vast  contraband 
trade  sprang  swiftly  up  upon  the  ruins  of  the  legiti- 
mate one.  Wool,  which  at  home  was  worth  only  5d.  or 
6d.  a  lb.,  in  France  fetched  half-a-crown.  The  whole 
population,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  flung 
themselves  energetically  on  the  side  of  the  smugglers. 
The  coast-line  was  long  and  intricate ;  the  excise 
practically  powerless.  Wool  was  packed  in  caves  all 
along  the  south  and  south-west  coast,  and  carried  ofif  as 
opportunity  served  by  the  French  vessels  which  came 
to  seek  it.  What  was  meant  by  nature  and  Provi- 
dence to  have  been  the  honest  and  open  trade  of  the 
country  was  thus  forced  to  be  carried  on  by  stealth 
and  converted    into  a  crime.     It  alleviated  to  some 


310  THE    COMMERCIAL    CODE. 

degree  the  distress,  but  it  made  Law  seem  more 
than  ever  a  mockery,  more  than  ever  the  one  arch- 
enemy against  which  every  man's  hand  might  legiti- 
mately be  raised. 

Even  this,  if  bad  enough,  was  not  the  worst.  The 
worst  was  that  this  arbitrary  Act — directed,  it  must 
be  repeated,  by  England,  not  against  the  Irish  natives, 
but  against  her  own  colonists — done,  too,  without 
there  being  an  opportunity  for  the  country  to  be 
heard  in  its  own  defence — struck  at  the  very  root  of 
all  enterprise,  and  produced  a  widespread  feeling  of 
hopelessness  and  despair.  Since  this  was  the  acknow- 
ledged result  of  too  successful  rivalry  with  England,  of 
what  use,  it  was  openly  asked,  to  attempt  any  new 
enterprise,  or  what  was  to  hinder  the  same  fate  from 
befalling  it  in  its  turn  .''  The  whole  relationship  of 
the  two  islands,  even  where  no  division  of  blood  or 
creed  existed,  grew  thus  to  be  strained  and  embittered 
to  the  last  degree  ;  the  sense  of  hostility  and  indig- 
nation being  hardly  less  strong  in  the  latest  arrived 
colonist  than  in  the  longest  established.  "  There  was 
scarce  an  Englishman,"  says  a  writer  of  the  time, 
"  who  had  been  seven  years  in  the  country,  and  ))ieant 
to  remain  there,  who  did  not  become  averse  to  England, 
and  grow  into  something  of  an  Irishman."  All  this 
must  be  taken  into  account  before  those  puzzling  con- 
tradictions and  anomalies  which  make  up  the  history 
of  this  century  can  ever  be  properly  realized. 


XLVII. 


MOLYNEUX   AND   SWIFT. 


The  early  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  such  a 
very  dreary  period  of  Irish  history  that  there  is  little 
temptation  to  linger  over  it.  Two  men,  however, 
stand  out  conspicuously  against  this  melancholy  back- 
ground, neither  of  whom  must  be  passed  over  without 
a  few  words. 

The  first  of  these  was  William  Molyneux,  the 
*'  Ingenious  Molyneux,"  as  he  was  called  by  his  con- 
temporaries, a  distinguished  philosopher,  whose  life 
was  almost  exclusively  devoted  to  scientific  pursuits. 
Molyneux  is,  or  ought  to  be,  a  very  interesting  figure 
to  any  one  who  cares,  even  slightly,  about  Ireland. 
He  was  one  of  the  chief  founders  of  the  Philosophical 
Association  in  Dublin,  which  was  the  parent  both  of 
the  present  Dublin  Society  and  of  the  Royal  Irish 
Academy.  He  was  also  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal 
Society,  and  a  friend  of  John  Locke,  with  whom  he 
constantly  corresponded.  Both  his  letters,  and  those 
of  his  brother.  Dr.  Thomas  Molyneux,  show  the  most 
vivid  and  constant  interest  in  everything  connected 
with  the  natural  history  of  Ireland.  Now  it  is  a 
moving  bog,  which  has  scared  the  natives  in  its  neigh- 


312  MOLYNEUX  AND   SWIFT. 

bourhood  out  of  their  senses  ;  now,  again,  some  great 
find  of  Irish  elks,  or  some  tooth  of  a  mammoth  which 
has  been  unearthed,  and  it  is  gravely  discussed  how  such 
a  "  large-bodied  beast "  could  have  been  transported 
over  seas,  especially  to  a  country  where  the  "  Greeks 
and  Romans  never  had  a  footing,"  and  where  therefore 
the  learned  Mr.  Camden's  theory,  that  the  elephants' 
bones  found  in  England  were  the  remains  of  those 
"  brought  over  by  the  Emperor  Claudius,"  necessarily 
falls  to  the  ground.  Both  the  brothers  Molyneux 
belong  to  a  band  of  Irish  naturalists  whose  numbers 
are,  unfortunatel}-,  remarkably  limited.  Why  it  should 
be  so  is  not  easily  explained,  but  so  it  is.  When  Irish 
archaeology  is  mentioned,  the  names  of  Petrie,  of 
Wilde,  of  Todd,  of  Graves,  and,  last  but  not  least,  of 
Miss  Margaret  Stokes  spring  to  the  mind.  Irish 
geologists,  with  Sir  Richard  Griffiths  at  their  head, 
show  as  good  a  record  as  those  of  any  other  country, 
but  the  number  of  Irish  naturalists  whose  fame  has 
reached  beyond  a  very  narrow  area  is  small  indeed. 
This  is  the  less  accountable  as,  though  scanty  as 
regards  the  number  of  its  species,  the  natural  history 
of  Ireland  is  full  of  interest,  abounding  in  problems 
not  even  yet  fully  solved  :  the  very  scantiness  of  its 
fauna  being  in  one  sense,  an  incentive  and  stimulus 
to  its  study,  for  the  same  reason  that  a  language  which 
is  on  the  point  of  dying  out  is  often  of  more  interest 
to  a  philologist  than  one  that  is  in  full  life  and  vigour. 
This,  however,  is  a  digression,  and  as  such  must  be 
forgiven.  Returning  to  the  arena  of  politics,  Moly- 
neux's  chief  claim  to  remembrance  rests  upon  a  work 
published  by  him  in  favour  of  the  rights  of  the   Lnsh 


MOLYNEUX'S  REMONSTRANCE.  313 

Parliament  in  the  last  year  but  one  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  only  seven  years  therefore  after  the  treaty  of 
Limerick. 

As  one  of  the  members  of  the  Dublin  University 
he  had  every  opportunity  of  judging  how  the  grasp 
which  the  English  Parliament  maintained  by  means 
of  the  obsolete  machinery  of  Poynings'  Act  was 
steadily  throttling  and  benumbing  all  Irish  enterprise. 
In  1698  his  famous  remonstrance,  known  as  "  The 
Case  of  Ireland  being  bound  by  Act  of  Parliament 
made  in  England,"  appeared,  with  a  dedication  to 
King  William.  It  at  once  created  an  immense 
sensation,  was  fiercely  condemned  as  seditious  and 
libellous  by  the  English  Parliament,  by  whom,  as  a 
mark  of  its  utter  abhorrence,  it  was  condemned  to  be 
burned  by  the  common  hangman. 

Few  things  will  give  a  clearer  idea  of  the  extra- 
ordinarily exasperated  state  of  politics  at  the  time 
than  to  read  the  remonstrance  which  produced  so 
tremendous  a  storm.  Take,  for  example,  the  words 
with  which  the  earlier  portion  of  it  closes,  and  which 
are  worth  studying,  if  only  for  the  impressive  dignity 
of  their  style,  which  not  a  little  foreshadows  Burke's 
majestic  prose  : — 

"  To  conclude,  I  think  it  highly  inconvenient  for 
England  to  assume  this  authority  over  the  kingdom 
of  Ireland.  I  believe  there  will  need  no  great  argu- 
ments to  convince  the  wise  assembly  of  English 
senators  how  inconvenient  it  may  be  to  England  to 
do  that  which  may  make  the  lords  and  the  people  of 
Ireland  think  that  they  are  not  well  used,  and  may 


314  MOLYNEUX  AND   SWIFT. 

drive  them  to  discontent.  The  laws  and  liberties  of 
England  were  granted  above  five  hundred  years  ago 
to  the  people  of  Ireland,  upon  their  submission  to  the 
Crown  of  England,  with  a  design  to  keep  them  in  the 
allegiance  of  the  king  of  England.  How  consistent 
it  may  be  with  true  policy  to  do  that  which  the  people 
of  Ireland  may  think  an  invasion  of  their  rights  and 
liberties,  I  do  most  humbly  submit  to  the  Parliament 
of  England  to  consider.  They  are  men  of  great 
wisdom,  honour,  and  justice,  and  know  how  to  prevent 
all  future  inconveniences.  We  have  heard  great  out- 
cries, and  deservedly,  on  breaking  the  edict  of  Nantes, 
and  other  stipulations.  How  far  the  breaking  our 
constitution,  which  has  been  of  five  hundred  years 
standing  exceeded  these,  I  leave  the  world  to  judge." 

In  another  place  Molyneux  vindicates  the  dignity 
of  a  Parliament  in  words  of  singular  force  and  mode- 
ration : — 

"  The  rights  of  Parliament  should  be  preserved 
sacred  and  inviolable  wherever  they  are  found.  This 
kind  of  government,  once  so  universal  all  over 
Europe,  is  now  almost  vanished  amongst  the  nations 
thereof  Our  king's  dominions  are  the  onl)^  supporters 
of  this  most  noble  Gothic  constitution,  save  only  what 
little  remains  may  be  found  thereof  in  Poland.  We 
should  not  therefore  make  so  light  of  that  sort  of 
legislature,  and,  as  it  were,  abolish  it  in  one  kingdom 
of  the  three  wherein  it  appears,  but  rather  cherish  and 
encourage  it  wherever  we  meet  it."  ^ 

'  "The  Case  of  Ireland  being  bound  by  Acts  of  Parliament  made 
in  England."     By  William  Molyneux,  Esq.,  Dublin. 


DEATH  OF  MOLYNEUX.  315 

For  a  remonstrance  so  dignified,  couched  in  lan- 
guage so  respectful,  burning  by  the  common  hangman 
seems  a  hard  lot.  The  disgrace,  if  such  it  was,  does 
not  appear  to  have  very  deeply  penetrated  its  author, 
who  pursued  the  even  tenour  of  his  way,  and  the 
same  year  paid  a  visit  to  his  friend  John  Locke,  on 
the  return  journey  from  which  visit  he  unfortunately 
caught  a  chill,  from  the  effects  of  which  he  died  the 
following  October.  After  his  death  the  momentary 
stir  which  his  eloquence  had  created  died  out,  as  the 
circles  left  by  the  falling  of  a  stone  die  out  upon  some 
stagnant  pool,  until  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  later 
a  much  more  violent  splash  again  aroused  attention, 
and  a  far  less  pacific  exponent  of  Irish  abuses  than 
Molyneux  sprang  fiercely  into  the  turmoil. 

Jonathan  Swift  had  been  eleven  years  Dean  of  St. 
Patrick's  before  he  produced  those  famous  letters 
which  have  left  their  mark  so  indelibly  upon  the 
course  of  Irish  politics.  Swift's  part  in  this  Stygian 
pool  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  rather  a  diffi- 
cult one  to  explain.  He  was  not  in  any  sense  an 
Irish  champion,  indeed,  objected  to  being  called  an 
Irishman  at  all,  and  regarded  his  life  in  Ireland  as 
one  of  all  but  unendurable  banishment.  He  was  a 
vehement  High  Churchman,  and  looked  upon  the 
existing  penal  proscription  under  which  the  Catholics 
lay  as  not  merely  desirable,  but  indispensable.  At 
the  same  time  it  would  be  quite  untrue  to  suppose, 
as  is  sometimes  done,  that  he  merely  made  a  cat's- 
paw  of  Irish  politics  in  order  to  bring  himself  back 
into  public  notice.  He  was  a  man  of  intense  and  even 
passionate  sense  of  justice,  and  the  state  of  affairs  in 


DEAN    SWIFT. 
(From  an  eugraviiig  by  Founii/uer  after  Jervis.) 


THE  DRAPIER   LETTERS.  317 

the  Ireland  of  his  day,  the  tyranny  and  poHtical  dis- 
honesty which  stalked  in  high  places,  the  degradation 
and  steadily-increasing  misery  in  which  the  mass  of 
the  people  were  sunk,  were  enough  to  lash  far  less 
scathing  powers  of  sarcasm  than  he  possessed  to 
their  highest  possible  pitch  of  expression. 

The  cause  that  drew  forth  the  famous  Drapier 
letters — why  Swift  chose  to  spell  the  word  draper 
with  an  i  no  one  has  ever  explained — appears  at  first 
sight  hardly  worthy  of  the  occasion.  Ireland  wanted 
a  copper  coinage,  and  Walpole,  who  was  then  the 
Prime  Minister,  had  given  a  patent  for  the  purpose  to 
a  person  called  Wood,  part  of  the  profits  of  which 
patent  were  to  go  to  the  Duchess  of  Kendal,  the 
king's  mistress.  There  seems  no  reason  to  think  that 
the  pennies  produced  by  Wood  were  in  any  way 
inferior  to  the  existing  English  ones,  and  Sir  Isaac 
Newton — who  was  at  the  time  Master  of  the  Mint — 
declared  that,  if  anything,  they  were  rather  better. 
The  real  wrong,  the  real  insult,  was  that  the  patent 
was  granted  by  the  Minister  without  reference  to  the 
Lord-Lieutenant,  to  the  Irish  Parliament,  or  to  any 
single  human  being  in  Ireland.  It  was  a  proof  the 
more  of  that  total  indifference  with  which  the  interests 
of  Ireland  were  regarded,  and  it  was  upon  this  score 
that  Swift's  wrath  exploded  like  a  bomb. 

The  line  he  chose  to  take  was  to  attack  the  patent, 
not  as  a  monstrous  job — which  undoubtedly  it  was — 
but  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  value  of  the  pennies. 
Assuming  the  character  of  a  tradesman,  he  adjured 
all  classes  of  the  community,  down  to  the  very  beggars, 
not  to  be  induced  to  accept  them.    Assured  them  that 


3l8  MOLYNEUX  AND  SWIFT. 

for  the  benefit  of  Mr.  Wood, "  a  mean  man,  a  hardware 
dealer,"  every  human  being  in  Ireland  was  about  to  be 
deliberately  robbed  and  ruined.  His  logic  sounded 
unanswerable  to  the  ignorant.  His  diatribes  produced 
the  most  extraordinary  effect.  A  terrific  panic  set  in, 
and  so  overwhelming  was  the  sensation  that  the 
Ministers  in  the  end  found  it  necessary  to  cancel  the 
patent,  and  suspend  the  issue  of  Wood's  halfpence. 
For  the  first  time  in  Irish  history  public  opinion,  un- 
supported by  arms,  had  carried  its  point:  an  epoch 
of  vast  importance  in  the  history  of  every  country. 

That  Swift  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  actual 
value  of  the  copper  coinage  was  not  a  matter  of  pro- 
found importance  may  be  taken  for  granted,  and  so  far 
his  conduct  is  certainly  not  justifiable  on  any  very  strict 
rule  of  ethics.  If  the  pennies  were  of  small  impor- 
tance, however,  there  were  other  things  that  were  of 
more.  Little  of  a  patriot  as  he  was,  little  as  he  was 
supposed,  or  supposed  himself,  to  care  for  Ireland  or 
Irishmen,  his  wrath  burnt  fiercely  at  what  he  saw 
around  him.  He  saw,  too,  his  own  wrongs,  as  others 
have  done  before  and  since,  "writ  large"  in  the  wrongs 
of  the  country,  and  resented  them  as  such.  With  his 
keen,  practical  knowledge  of  men,  he  knew,  more- 
over, how  thick  was  that  medium,  born  of  prejudice 
and  ignorance,  through  which  he  had  to  pierce — a 
medium  through  which  nothing  less  pointed  than  the 
forked  lightnings  of  his  own  terrible  wit  could  have 
found  its  way.  Whatever  his  motives  were,  his  suc- 
cess at  least  is  indisputable.  High  Churchman  as  he 
was,  vehement  anti-papist  as  he  was,  he  became  from 
that  moment,  and  remained  to  the  hour  of  his  death, 


WOOD  S   PATENT   CANCELLED. 


319 


beyond  all  question  the  most  popular  man  in  Ireland 
and  his  name  was  ever  afterwards  upon  the  lips  of 
all  who  aspired  to  promote  the   best   interests   and 
prosperity  of  their  country. 


XLVIIL 

HENRY   FLOOD. 

The  forty  years  which  follow  maybe  passed  rapidly 
over.  They  were  years  of  absolute  tranquillity  in 
Ireland,  but  beyond  that  rather  negative  praise  little 
of  good  can  be  reported  of  them.  Public  opinion  was 
to  all  practical  purposes  dead,  and  the  functions  of 
Parliament  were  little  more  than  nominal.  Unlike 
the  English  one,  the  Irish  Parliament  had  by  the 
nature  of  its  constitution,  no  natural  termination,  save 
by  a  dissolution,  or  by  the  death  of  the  sovereign. 
Thus  George  the  Second's  Irish  Parliament  sat  for 
no  less  than  thirty-three  years,  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end  of  his  reign.  The  sessions,  too,  had 
gradually  come  to  be,  not  annual  as  in  England,  but 
biennial,  the  Lord- Lieutenant  spending  as  a  rule  only 
six  months  in  every  two  years  in  Ireland.  In  his 
absence  all  power  was  vested  in  the  hands  of  the 
Lords  Justices,  of  whom  the  most  conspicuous  during 
this  period  were  the  three  successive  archbishops  of 
Armagh,  namely.  Swift's  opponent  Boulter,  Hoadly, 
and  Stone,  all  three  Englishmen,  and  devoted  to  what 
was  known  as  the  "  English  interest,"  who  governed 
the  country  by  the  aid  of  a  certain  number  of  great 


PHILIP  Earl  of  CMsTERTIELD. 

Deln^ttful  ta/k!  to  rear  the  tender  thought. 

To  teach  the  voung-ideahow  to  fhoot. 

To  pour  the  frefh  uiftruoaon  o'er  the  Tnind, 

To  breatlie  th'enlivening:  fpirit.and  to  fiX 

The  generous  piorpofe  in  the  glowing  breatt.  Thomfan. 

LORD    LIEUTENANT    FROM    I745    TO    1754. 


322  HENRY  FLOOD. 

Irish  borough-owners,  or  Undertakers,  who  "  under- 
took "  to  carry  on  the  king's  business  in  consideration 
of  receiving  the  lion's  share  of  the  patronage,  which 
they  distributed  amongst  their  own  adherents.  Of 
these  borough-owners  Lord  Shannon  was  the  happy 
possessor  of  no  less  than  sixteen  seats,  while  others 
had  eight,  ten,  twelve,  or  more,  which  were  regularly 
and  openly  let  out  to  hire  to  the  Government.  Efforts 
were  from  time  to  time  made  by  the  more  indepen- 
dent members  to  curtail  these  abuses,  and  to  recover 
some  degree  of  independence  for  the  Parliament,  but 
for  a  long  time  their  efforts  were  without  avail,  and 
owing  to  the  nature  of  its  constitution,  it  was  all  but 
impossible  to  bring  public  opinion  to  bear  upon  its 
proceedings,  so  that  the  only  vestige  of  independence 
shown  was  when  a  collision  occurred  between  the  sel- 
fish interests  of  those  in  whose  hands  all  power  was 
thus  concentrated. 

About  1743  some  stir  began  to  be  aroused  by  a 
succession  of  statements  published  by  Charles  Lucas, 
a  Dublin  apothecary,  in  the  Freeman's  Journal^  a 
newspaper  started  by  him,  and  in  which  he  vehe- 
m'ently  denounced  the  venality  of  Parliament,  and 
loudly  asserted  the  inherent  right  of  Ireland  to  govern 
itself,  a  right  of  which  it  had  only  been  formally 
deprived  by  the  Declaratory  Act  of  George  I.^  So 
unequivocal  was  his  language  that  the  grand  jury  of 
Dublin  at  last  gave  orders  for  his  addresses  to  be 
burnt,  and  in  1749  a  warrant  was  issued  for  his  appre- 
hension, whereupon  he  fled  to  England,  and  did  not 
return  until  many  years  later,  when  he  was  at  once 

'  English  Statutes,  6  Geo.  c.  5. 


His  early  life.  323 

elected  member  for  Dublin.  His  speeches  in  the 
House  of  Commons  seem  never  to  have  produced  an 
effect  at  all  comparable  with  that  of  his  writings,  but 
he  gave  a  constant  and  important  support  to  the 
patriotic  party,  which  had  now  formed  itself  into  a 
small  but  influential  opposition  under  the  leadership 
of  Henry  Flood. 

Flood  and  Grattan  are  by  far  the  two  greatest  of 
those  orators  and  statesmen  whose  eloquence  lit  up  the 
debates  of  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  during  its 
brief  period  of  brilliancy,  and  as  such  will  require, 
even  in  so  hasty  a  sketch  as  this,  to  be  dwelt  upon  at 
some  length.  Since  a  good  deal  of  the  same  ground 
will  have  to  be  gone  over  in  succeeding  chapters,  it 
seems  best  to  explain  here  those  points  which  affected 
them  personally,  and  to  show  as  far  as  possible  in 
what  relationship  they  stood  one  to  the  other. 

Henry  Flood  was  born  near  Kilkenny  in  1732,  and 
was  the  son  of  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  King's  Bench. 
At  sixteen  he  went  to  I'rinjty  College,  Dublin,  and 
afterwards  to  Oxford.  In  1759  he  entered  the  Irish 
Parliament  as  member  for  Kilkenny,  and  at  once  threw 
himself  vehemently  upon  the  popular  side,  his  first 
speech  being  an  attack  upon  the  Primate  Stone.  As 
an  orator  his  style  appears  to  have  been  laboured,  and 
his  speeches  brim  over  in  all  directions  with  forced  illus- 
trations and  metaphors,  but  his  powers  of  argument 
and  debate  were  remarkably  strong.  For  about  ten 
years  he  waged  a  continual  struggle  against  the 
Government,  urging  especially  a  limitation  to  the 
duration  of  Parliament  and  losing  no  opportunity  of 
asserting  its  claims  to  independence,  or  of  attacking 


RKlllT    IKJ.N.    HENRY    FLOOD. 

{After  a  drawing  by  Comerford.) 


RECALL   OF  LORD   TOWNSHEND.  325 

the  pension  list,  which  under  the  system  then  pre- 
vaihng  grew  steadily  from  year  to  year.  Upon  reform 
he  also  early  fixed  his  attention,  although,  unlike 
Grattan,  he  was  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his 
hfe  steadily  hostile  to  all  proposals  for  giving  the 
franchise  to  the  Catholics. 

During  the  vicero}-alty  of  Lord  Townshend,  who 
became  Lord-Lieutenant  in  1767,  an  Octennial  Bill 
was  passed  limiting  the  duration  of  Parliament  to 
eight  years,  but  this  momentary  gleam  of  better 
things  was  not  sustained  ;  on  the  contrary,  corruption 
was,  under  his  rule,  carried  even  further  than  it  had 
been  before.  Under  the  plea  of  breaking  the  power 
of  the  borough-owners,  he  set  himself  dehberately 
to  make  the  whole  Parliament  subservient  to  Govern- 
ment, thus  practically  depriving  it  of  what  little 
vestige  of  independence  it  still  possessed.  A  succes- 
sion of  struggles  took  place,  chiefly  over  Money  Bills, 
the  more  independent  members,  under  Flood's  leader- 
ship, claiming  for  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  the 
complete  control  of  the  national  purse,  a  claim  as 
uniformly  resisted  by  the  Government.  Though 
almost  invariably  defeated  on  a  division  in  the  end 
the  opposition  were  to  a  great  degree  successful,  and 
in  1773  the  hated  viceroy  was  re-called. 

This  was  the  moment  at  which  Flood  stood  higher 
in  his  countrymen's  estimation  than  was  ever  again 
the  case.  He  was  identified  with  all  that  was  best  in 
their  aspirations,  and  no  shadow  of  self-seeking  had 
as  yet  dimmed  the  brightness  of  his  fame.  It  was 
very  different  with  his  next  step.  Lord  Townshend 
was  succeeded  by  Lord  Harcourt,  whose  administra- 


326  HENRY  FLOOD. 

tion  at  first  promised  to  be  a  shade  more  liberal  and 
less  corrupt  than  that  of  his  predecessors.  Of 
this  administration  Flood,  to  his  own  misfortune, 
became  a  member.  What  his  motives  were  it  is 
rather  difficult  to  say.  He  was  a  rich  man,  and  there- 
fore had  no  temptation  to  sell  or  stifle  his  opinions  for 
place.  Whatever  they  were,  it  is  clear,  from  letters 
still  extant,  that  he  not  only  accepted  but  solicited 
office.  He  was  made  Vice-Treasui-er,  a  post  hitherto 
reserved  for  Englishmen,  at  a  salary  of  iJ^3,500  a  year. 
Although,  as  Mr,  Lecky  has  pointed  out,  no  actual 
stain  of  dishonour  attaches  to  Flood  in  consequence 
of  this  step,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  grave 
error,  and  that  he  lived  to  repent  it  bitterly.  For  the 
next  seven  years  not  only  was  he  forced  to  keep  silence 
as  regards  all  those  points  he  had  previously  advocated 
so  warmly,  but,  as  a  member  of  the  Government,  he 
actually  helped  to  uphold  some  of  the  most  damaging 
of  the  restraints  laid  upon  Irish  trade  and  prosperity. 
Upon  the  outbreak  of  the  America  war  a  two  years' 
embargo  was  laid  upon  Ireland,  and  a  force  of  4,000 
men  raised  and  despatched  to  America  at  its  ex- 
pense. The  state  of  defencelessness  in  which  this  left 
the  country  led,  as  will  be  seen  in  a  succeeding  chap- 
ter, to  a  great  volunteer  movement,  in  which  all  classes 
and  creeds  joined  enthusiastically.  Flood  was  unable 
to  resist  the  contagion.  His  voice  was  once  again 
heard  upon  the  liberal  side.  He  flung  away  the 
trammels  of  office,  surrendered  his  large  salary,  and 
returned  to  his  old  friends.  He  never,  however,  re- 
gained his  old  place.  A  greater  man  had  in  the 
meanwhile  risen  to  the  front,  and  in  Henry  Grattan 


FLOOD   AS   AN   ENGLISH   MEMBER.  327 

Irish  aspiration  had  found  its  clearest  and  strongest 
voice. 

This  was  a  source  of  profound  mortification 
to  Flood,  and  led  eventually  to  a  bitter  quarrel 
between  these  two  men — patriots  in  the  best  sense 
both  of  them.  Flood  tried  to  outbid  Grattan  by 
pushing  the  concessions  won  from  England  in  the 
moment  of  her  difficulty  yet  further,  and  by  making 
use  of  the  volunteers  as  a  lever  to  enforce  his  de- 
mands. This  Grattan  honourably,  whether  wisely  or 
not,  resisted,  and  the  Parliament  supported  his  resis- 
tance. After  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  carry  a 
Reform  Bill,  Flood  retired,  to  a  great  degree,  from 
Irish  public  life,  and  not  long  afterwards  succeeded  in 
getting  a  seat  in  the  English  Parliament.  His  oratory 
there  proved  a  failure.  He  was  "  an  oak  of  the 
forest  too  great  and  old,"  as  Grattan  said,  "  to  be 
transplanted  at  fifty."  This  failure  was  a  fresh  and  a 
yet  more  mortifying  disappointment,  and  his  end  was 
a  gloomy  and  somewhat  obscure  one,  but  he  will 
always  be  remembered  with  gratitude  as  one  of  the 
first  who  in  the  Irish  Parliament  lifted  his  voice 
against  those  restrictions  under  which  the  prosperity 
of  the  country  lay  shackled  and  all  but  dead. 


XLIX. 

HENRY   GRATTAN. 

"Great  men,"  wrote  Sydney  Smith,  sixty  years 
ago  in  an  article  in  The  Edinburgh  Review/' )l\s\\o^ 
a  whole  people,  and  lift  up  all  who  live  in  their  time. 
What  Irishman  does  not  feel  proud  that  he  lived  in 
the  days  of  Grattan  ?  Who  has  not  turned  to  him  for 
comfort  from  the  false  friends  and  open  enemies  of 
Ireland  ?  Who  did  not  remember  him  in  the  days  of 
its  burnings,  wastings,  and  murders?" 

Grattan  is,  indeed,  pre-eminently  the  Irish  politi- 
cian to  whom  other  Irish  politicians — however  diverse 
their  views  or  convictions — turn  unanimously  with  the 
common  sense  of  admiration  and  homage.  Two 
characteristics— usually  supposed  in  Ireland  to  be  in- 
herently antagonistic  —  met  harmoniously  in  him. 
He  was  consistently  loyal  and  he  was  consistently 
patriotic.  From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  career 
his  patriotism  never  hindered  him  either  from  risking 
his  popularity  whenever  he  considered  duty  or  the 
necessities  of  the  case  required  him  to  do  so  ;  a  reso- 
lution which  more  than  once  brought  him  into  sharp 
collision  with  his  countrymen,  on  one  occasion  even 
at  some  little  risk  to  himself. 


RIGHT   HON.    HENRY   GRAl  TAN,    M.P. 
{From  an  engravittg  by  Godby  after  Pope.) 


330       '  Henry  grattan. 

In  1775  he  entered  Parliament — sixteen  years, 
therefore,  later  than  Flood — being  brought  in  by  his 
friend  Lord  Charlemont.  The  struggle  with  America 
was  then  beginning,  and  all  Grattan's  sympathies 
went  with  those  colonists  who  were  battling  for  their 
own  independence.  His  eloquence  from  the  moment 
it  was  first  heard  produced  an  extraordinary  effect, 
and  when  the  volunteer  movement  broke  out  he  threw 
himself  heartily  into  it,  and  availed  himself  of  it  to 
press  in  the  Irish  Parliament  for  those  measures  of 
free  trade  and  self-government  upon  which  his  heart 
was  set.  When  the  first  of  these  measures  was  car- 
ried, he  brought  forward  the  famous  Declaration  of 
Rights,  embodying  the  demand  for  independence,  a 
demand  which,  in  the  first  instance,  he  had  to  defend 
almost  single-handed.  Many  of  his  best  friends 
hung  back,  believing  the  time  to  be  not  yet  ripe 
for  such  a  proposal.  Even  Edmund  Burke — the 
life-long  and  passionate  friend  of  Ireland — cried  out 
in  alarm  "  Will  no  one  speak  to  that  madman  ?  Will 
no  one  stop  that  madman  Grattan  ?  "  The  madman, 
however,  went  on  undismayed.  His  words  flew  like 
wildfire  over  the  country.  He  was  supported  in  his 
motion  by  eighteen  counties,  by  addresses  from  the 
grand  juries,  and  by  resolutions  from  the  volunteers. 
By  1782,  the  impulse  had  grown  so  strong  that  it 
could  no  longer  be  resisted.  An  address  in  favour  of 
Grattan's  Declaration  of  Rights  was  carried  enthu- 
siastically in  April  by  the  Irish  Parliament,  and  so 
impressed  was  the  Government  by  the  determined 
attitude  of  the  country  that,  by  the  27th  of  May  the 
Viceroy  was  empowered  to  announce  the  concurrence 


THE   DECLARATION   OF  RIGHTS.  33I 

of  the  English  legislature.  The  Declaratory  Act  of 
George  I.  was  then  repealed  by  the  English  Parliament, 
Bills  were  immediately  afterwards  passed  by  the 
Irish  one  embodying  the  Declaration  of  Rights, 
also  a  biennial  Mutiny  Act,  and  an  Act  validating 
the  marriage  of  Dissenters,  while,  above  all,  Poynings' 
Act,  which  had  so  long  fettered  its  free  action,  was 
once  for  all  repealed. 

This  was  the  happiest  moment  of  Grattan's  life. 
The  country,  with  a  burst  of  spontaneous  gratitude, 
voted  him  a  grant  of  ^100,000.  This  sum  he  declined, 
but  in  the  end  was  persuaded,  with  some  reluctance, 
to  take  half  A  period  of  brief,  but  while  it  lasted 
unquestionable  prosperity  spread  over  the  country. 
In  Dublin,  public  buildings  sprang  up  in  all  direc- 
tions ;  a  bright  little  society  flourished  and  enjoyed 
itself ;  trade  too  prospered  to  a  degree  never  hitherto 
known.  Between  England  and  Ireland,  however,  the 
commercial  restrictions  were  still  in  force.  The 
condition  of  the  Irish  Catholics,  though  latterly  to 
some  degree  alleviated,  was  still  one  of  all  but  un- 
endurable oppression.  Reform,  too,  was  as  far  off  as 
ever,  and  corruption  had  increased  rather  than 
diminished,  owing  to  the  greatly  increased  importance 
of  the  Parliament.  In  1789  an  unfortunate  quarrel 
sprang  up  between  the  two  legislatures  over  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  Regent,  rendered  necessary  by  the 
temporary  insanity  of  George  III.,  and  this  difference 
was  afterwards  used  as  an  argument  in  favour  of  a 
legislative  Union.  In  1793  a  measure  of  half-emanci- 
pation was  granted,  Roman  Catholics  being  admitted 
to  vote,  though  not  to  sit  in  Parliament,  an  anomalous 


^^2  HENRY  G RATTAN. 

distinction  giving  power  to  the  ignorant,  yet  still 
keeping  the  fittest  men  out  of  public  life.  Upon  the 
arrival  of  Lord  Fitzvvilliam  as  Viceroy  in  1795,  it 
was  fervently  believed  that  full  emancipation  was  at 
last  about  to  be  granted,  and  Grattan  brought  in  a 
Bill  to  that  effect.  These  hopes,  as  will  presently 
be  seen,  were  destined  to  be  bitterly  disappointed. 
Lord  Fitzvvilliam  was  recalled,  and  from  that 
moment  Grattan  was  doomed  to  stand  helplessly  by 
and  watch  the  destruction  of  that  edifice  which  he 
had  spent  his  whole  life  to  erect  and  strengthen.  The 
country  grew  more  and  more  restless,  and  it  was  plain 
to  all  who  could  read  the  signs  of  the  times  that, 
unless  discontent  was  in  some  way  allayed,  a  rebellion 
was  sure  to  break  out.  In  1798  this  long  foreseen 
calamity  occurred,  but  before  it  did  so,  Grattan  had 
retired  heart-broken  and  despairing  into  private  life. 

He  re-emerged  to  plead,  vehemently  but  fruitlessly, 
against  the  Union  which  was  passed  the  following 
spring.  As  will  be  seen,  when  we  reach  that  period 
the  fashion  in  which  that  act  was  carried  made  it 
difficult  for  an  honourable  man,  however  loyal — and 
no  man,  it  must  be  repeated,  was  more  steadily  loyal 
than  Henry  Grattan — to  give  it  his  support.  He 
believed  too  firmly  that  Ireland  could  work  out  its 
own  destiny  best  by  the  aid  of  a  separate  Parliamenc, 
and  to  this  opinion  he  throughout  his  life  clung.  In 
his  own  words,  "  The  two  countries  from  their  size 
must  stand  together — united  quoad  nature — distinct 
quoad  legislation." 

In  1805  he  became  a  member  of  the  English  Par- 
liament, where  unlike  Flood,  his  eloquence  had  almost 


HIS   DEATH.  333 

as  much  effect  as  in  Ireland,  and  where  he  was  regarded 
by  all  parties  with  the  deepest  respect  and  regard. 
His  heart,  however,  remained  firmly  anchored  to  its 
old  home,  and  all  his  recollections  in  his  old  age 
centred  around  these  earlier  struggles.  He  died  in 
1820,  and  was  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey.  One 
more  quotation  from  Sydney  Smith  sums  up  the 
man  for  us  in  a  few  words  :  "  The  highest  attainments 
of  human  genius  were  within  his  reach,  but  he  thought 
the  noblest  occupation  of  a  man  was  to  make  other  men 
happy  and  free,  and  in  that  straight  line  he  kept  for 
fifty  years,  without  one  side-look,  one  yielding  thought, 
one  motive  in  his  heart  which  might  not  have  laid 
open  to  the  view  of  God  or  man."  A  generation  which 
produced  two  such  men  as  Henry  Grattan  and 
Edmund  Burke  might  well  be  looked  back  to  by  any 
country  in  the  world  as  the  flower  and  crown  of  its 
national  life.  There  have  not  been  many  greater  or 
better  in  the  whole  chequered  history  of  the  human 
race. 


THE   IRISH    VOLUNTEERS. 


The  revolt  of  the  English  Colonies  in  America, 
although  it  evoked  no  disloyalty,  had  a  strong  and 
unforeseen  influence  upon  the  equally  English  colony 
in  Ireland.  It  would  have  been  strange  had  it  not 
done  so.  The  circumstances  of  the  two  colonies 
— looking  at  Ireland  merely  in  that  light — were  in 
many  respects  all  but  identical.  If  England  could 
tax  America  without  the  consent  of  its  representa- 
tives, then,  equally  it  could  tax  Ireland,  in  which 
case  the  long  struggles  lately  waged  by  Flood,  Grat- 
tan,  and  others  in  the  Irish  Parliament  over  Money 
Bills  would  be  definitely  decided  against  it.  Com- 
pared to  Ireland,  America  indeed  had  little  to  com- 
plain of.  The  restrictions  which  held  back  Irish 
commerce  still  existed  in  almost  all  their  pristine 
force.  The  woollen  trade,  save  for  some  very  trifling 
home  consumption,  was  practically  dead  ;  even  the 
linen  trade,  which  had  been  promised  encourage- 
ment, had  hitherto  hardly  received  any.  Bounties  had 
been  offered,  on  the  contrary,  to  English  woollen 
manufacturers,  and  duties  levied  on  Irish  sail-cloth, 
which  had  effectually  put  a  stop  to  that  important 


CONDITION  OF   THE   COUNTRY.  335 

branch  of  the  trade.  Another  cause  had  also  affected 
commerce  seriously.  The  manufacturers  of  the  north, 
were  almost  to  a  man  Presbyterian,  and  the  laws 
against  Presbyterians  had  been  pressed  with  almost 
as  much  severity  as  against  Catholics.  Under  the 
rule  of  Archbishops  Boulter,  Hoadly,  and  Stone,  who 
had  in  succession  governed  the  country,  the  Test 
Act  had  been  employed  with  a  suicidal  severity, 
which  had  driven  thousands  of  industrious  men  to 
join  their  brethren  in  x^merica,  where  they  could 
worship  in  peace,  and  where  their  presence  was  before 
long  destined  to  produce  a  formidable  effect  upon  the 
impending  struggle. 

The  whole  condition  of  the  country  was  miserable 
in  the  extreme.  Agriculture  was  at  the  lowest 
possible  ebb.  The  Irish  farmers,  excluded  from  the 
English  and  all  foreign  markets,  were  reduced  to 
destitution.  Land  was  offered  at  fourteen  and  twelve 
years'  purchase,  and  even  at  those  prices  found  no 
buyers.  Many  of  the  principal  landowners  were 
absentees,  and  though  the  rents  themselves  do  not 
seem  as  a  rule  to  have  been  high,  the  middlemen,  by 
whom  the  land  was  commonly  taken,  ground  the 
wretched  peasants  under  them  to  powder  with  their 
exactions.  While  everything  else  was  thus  steadily 
shrinking,  the  pension  list  was  swelling  until  it  stood 
not  far  short  of  ;!{^ioo,ooo.  The  additional  troops 
recently  raised  in  Ireland  had  been  sent  to  America, 
and  their  absence  had  left  the  country  all  but  defence- 
less. In  1779,  an  attempt  was  made  to  carry  out  a 
levy  of  militia,  in  which  Prostestants  only  were  to  be 
enrolled,  and  an  Act  passed  for  the  purpose.     It  failed 


336  THE   IRISH   VOLUNTEERS. 

Utterly,  for  so  miserably  bankrupt  was  the  condition  of 
the  Irish  Government,  that  it  was  found  impossible 
to  collect  money  to  pay  the  men,  and  the  scheme  in 
consequence  had  to  be  given  up. 

It  proved,  however,  to  be  the  parent  of  a  really 
successful  one.  In  the  same  year  a  volunteer  move- 
ment sprang  into  sudden  existence.  Belfast  had 
been  left  empty  of  troops,  and  was  hourly  in  fear  of 
a  French  descent,  added  to  which  it  was  harassed  by 
the  dread  of  a  famous  pirate  of  the  period,  called 
Paul  Jones.  Under  these  circumstances  its  citizens 
resolved  to  enrol  themselves  for  their  own  defence. 
The  idea,  once  started,  flew  through  the  country  like 
wild-fire.  The  old  fighting  spirit  sprang  to  sudden 
life  at  the  cry  to  arms.  After  three-quarters  of  a 
century  of  torpor  all  was  stir  and  animation.  In 
every  direction  the  gentry  were  enrolling  their  tenants, 
the  sons  of  the  great  houses  officering  the  corps  and 
drilling  their  own  retainers.  Merchants,  peers,  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  all  vied  with  one  another,  and  in  a 
few  months'  time  nearly  60,000  men  had  been  enrolled. 

Although  a  good  deal  alarmed  at  the  rapidity  of 
this  movement,  the  Government  could  not  very  well 
refuse  to  let  the  country  arm  in  its  own  defence,  and 
16,000  stand  of  arms,  which  had  been  brought  over 
for  the  projected  militia,  were  after  a  while  distributed. 
The  greatest  pride  was  felt  in  the  completeness  and 
perfection  of  the  equipments.  Reviews  were  held, 
and,  for  once,  national  sentiment  and  loyalty  seemed 
to  have  struck  hands. 

Hardly,  too,  were  the  volunteers  enrolled  before  it 
began  to  be  felt  what  a  power  was   thus  conferred 


JAMES   CALLFIELD,    EARL   OF   CHARLEMON  r,    L0MMAM;)ER    OI-    THE 
IRISH    VOLUNTEERS. 

(From  an  etching  after  a  picture  by  Hogarth. ) 


338  THE  IRISH   VOLUNTEERS. 

upon  that  party  which  had  so  long  pleaded  in  vain  for 
the  relief  of  Ireland  from  those  commercial  disabilities 
under  which  it  still  laboured.  Although  the  whole 
tone  of  the  volunteers  was  loyal,  and  although  their 
principal  leader,  Lord  Charlemont,  was  a  man  of  the 
utmost  tact  and  moderation,  it  was  none  the  less 
clear  that  an  appeal  backed  by  60,000  men  in  arms 
acquired  a  weight  and  momentum  which  no  previous 
Irish  appeal  had  ever  even  approached. 

In  October  of  the  same  year  Parliament  met,  and 
an  amendment  to  the  address  was  moved  by  Grattan, 
demanding  a  right  of  free  export  and  import.  Then 
Flood  rose  in  his  place,  still  holding  office,  and  pro- 
posed that  the  more  comprehensive  words  Free  Trade 
should  be  adopted.  It  was  at  once  agreed  to  and 
carried  unanimously.  Next  day  the  whole  House  of 
Commons  went  in  a  body  to  present  the  address  to 
the  Lord-Lieutenant,  the  volunteers  lining  the  streets 
and  presenting  arms  as  they  went  by. 

The  Government  were  startled.  Lord  Buckingham- 
shire, the  Lord-Lieutenant,  wrote  to  England  to  say 
that  the  trade  restrictions  must  be  repealed,  or  he 
would  not  answer  for  the  consequences.  Lord  North, 
the  Prime  Minister,  yielded,  and  a  Bill  of  repeal 
were  brought  in,  allowing  Ireland  free  export  and 
import  to  foreign  countries  and  to  the  English 
Colonies.  When  the  news  reached  Dublin,  the  utmost 
delight  and  excitement  prevailed.  Bonfires  were  lit, 
houses  in  Dublin  illuminated,  the  volunteers  fired 
salvoes  of  rejoicing,  and  addresses  of  gratitude  were 
forthwith  forwarded  to  England. 

The  next  step  in  the    upward    progress  has   been 


LEGISLATIVE  INDEPENDENCE.  339 

already  partially   described   in    the   chapter   dealing 
with  Grattan.     At  the  meeting  of  Parliament  in  1782, 
the    Declaration    of    Rights    proposed    by   him   was 
passed,  and  urgently  pressed  upon  the  consideration 
of  the  Government.     The  moment  was  exceptionally 
favourable.     Lord  North's  Ministry  had  by  this  time 
fallen,  after  probably  the  most    disastrous  tenure  of 
office  that  had    ever  befallen   any   English  adminis- 
tration.      America   had   achieved   her  independence, 
and  England  was  in  no  mood  for   embarking  upon 
fresh    struggle   with    another   of    her    dependencies. 
In  Ireland  the  Ulster  volunteers  had    lately  met  at 
Dungannon,   and    passed   unanimous    resolutions   in 
favour  of  Grattan's  proposal,  and  their  example  had 
been  speedily  followed  all  over  Ireland.     The  Whig 
Ministry,  now  in  power,  was  known  to  be  not  unfavour- 
able to   the  cause  which    the    Irish    patriots    had   at 
heart.      A    Bill    was    brought    forward    and    carried, 
revoking  the   recent  Declaratory  Acts  which  bound 
the  Irish  Parliament,  and  giving  it  the  right  to  legis- 
late for  itself.     Poynings'  Act  was  thereupon  repealed, 
and  a  number  of  independent  Acts,  as  already  stated, 
passed    by   the    now   emancipated    Irish    Parliament. 
The  legislative   independence  was  an   accomplished 
fact. 

The  objects  of  the  volunteers'  existence  was  now 
ov-er.  The  American  war  was  at  an  end,  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  Parliament  assured,  and  it  was 
felt  therefore,  by  all  moderate  men,  that  it  was  now 
time  for  them  to  disband.  Flood,  who  had  now 
again  joined  the  patriotic  party,  was  strongly  op- 
posed to  this.     He  pressed   forward  his  motion  for 


340  THE   IRISH   VOLUNTEERS. 

"simpje  repeal,"  and  was  supported  by  Lord  Bristol 
the  Bishop  of  Derry,  a  scatter-brained  prelate,  who 
had  been  bitten  by  a  passion  for  military  glory,  and 
would  have  been  perfectly  willing  to  see  the  whole 
country  plunged  into  bloodshed.  A  better  and  more 
reasonable  plea  on  Flood's  part  was  that  reform  was 
the  crying  necessity  of  the  hour,  and  ought  to  be 
carried  while  the  volunteers  were  still  enrolled,  and 
the  effect  already  produced  by  their  presence  was 
still  undiminished.  Grattan  also  desired  reform^ 
but  held  that  the  time  for  carrying  it  was  not 
yet  ripe.  A  vehement  debate  ensued,  and  bitter 
recriminations  were  exchanged.  A  convention  of 
volunteers  was  at  the  moment  being  held  in  Dublin, 
and  Flood  endeavoured  to  make  use  of  their  presence 
there  to  get  his  Reform  Bill  passed.  This  the  House 
regarded  as  a  menace,  and  after  a  violent  debate  his 
Bill  was  thrown  out.  There  was  a  moment  during  which 
it  seemed  as  if  the  volunteers  were  about  to  try  the 
question  by  force  of  arms.  More  prudent  counsels, 
however,  prevailed,  and,  greatly  to  their  credit,  they 
consented  a  week  later  to  lay  down  their  arms,  and 
retire  peaceably  to  their  own  homes. 


LI. 


DANGER  SIGNALS. 


The  significant  warnings  uttered  by  Flood  and 
others  against  the  danger  of  postponing  reform  until 
the  excitement  temporarily  awakened  upon  the  sub- 
ject had  subsided  and  the  volunteers  disbanded, 
proved,  unfortunately,  to  be  only  too  well  justified. 
Where  Flood,  however,  had  erred,  had  been  in  failing  to 
see  that  a  reform  which  left  three-fourths  of  the  people 
of  the  countr)'  unrepresented,  could  never  be  more 
than  a  reform  in  name.  This  error  Grattan  never 
made.  During  the  next  ten  or  twelve  years,  his  efforts 
were  steadily  and  continually  directed  to  obtaining 
equal  political  power  for  all  his  fellow-countrymen 
alike.  Reform  was  indeed  the  necessity  of  the  hour. 
The  corruption  of  Parliament  was  increasing  rather 
than  diminishing.  From  130  to  140  of  its  members 
were  tied  by  indissoluble  knots  to  the  Government, 
and  could  only  vote  as  by  it  directed.  Most  of  these 
vi^ere  the  nominees  of  the  borough-owners ;  many 
held  places  or  enjoyed  pensions  terminable  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  king,  and  at  the  smallest  sign  of  in- 
subordination  or  independence    instant  pressure  was 


343  DANGER   SIGNALS. 

brought  to  bear  upon  them  until  they  returned  to 
their  obedience. 

Although  free  now  to  import  and  export  from  the 
rest  of  the  world  no  change  with  regard  to  Ireland's 
commercial  intercourse  with  Great  Britain  had  as  yet 
taken  place.  In  1785,  a  number  of  propositions  were 
drawn  up  by  the  Dublin  Parliament,  to  enable  the 
importation  of  goods  through  Great  Britain  into 
Ireland,  or  vice  versa,  without  any  increase  of  duty. 
These  propositions  were  agreed  to  by  Pitt,  then 
Prime  Minister,  and  were  brought  forward  by  him  in 
the  English  House  of  Commons.  Again,  however, 
commercial  jealousy  stepped  in.  A  number  of  Eng- 
lish towns  remonstrated  vehemently ;  one  petition 
despatched  to  the  House  alone  bearing  the  signature 
of  80,000  Lancashire  manufacturers.  "Greater  panic," 
it  was  said  at  the  time,  "could  not  have  been  expressed 
had  an  invasion  been  in  question."  The  result  was, 
that  a  number  of  modifications  were  made  to  the 
propositions,  and  when  returned  to  Ireland,  so  pro- 
foundly had  they  been  altered,  that  the  patriotic 
party  refused  to  accept  them,  and  although  when  the 
division  came  on,  the  Government  obtained  a  majority 
it  was  so  small  that  the  Bill  was  allowed  to  drop,  and 
thus  the  whole  scheme  came  to  nothing-. 

Outside  Parliament,  meanwhile,  the  country  was  in 
a  very  disturbed  state.  Long  before  this  local  riots 
and  disturbances  had  broken  out,  especially  in  the 
south.  As  early  as  1762,  secret  societies,  known  under 
the  generic  name  of  Whiteboys,  had  inspired  terror 
throughout  Munster,  especially  in  the  counties  of 
Cork,   Limerick,   and   Tipperary.      These  risings,   as 


RIGHT    HON.    EDMUND    BURKE. 

(From  an  engraving  by  yo?ies  after  Romtiey. 


344  DANGER    SIGNALS. 

has  been  clearly  proved  by  Mr.  Lecky,  had  little,  if 
any,  connection  with  either  politics  or  religion.  Their 
cause  lay,  as  he  shows,  on  the  very  surface,  in  the  all 
but  unendurable  misery  in  which  the  great  mass  of 
the  people  were  sunk. 

Lord  Chesterfield,  one  of  the  few  Lord-Lieutenants 
who  had  really  attempted  to  understand  Ireland,  had 
years  before  spoken  in  unmistakeable  language  on  this 
point.  Subletting  was  almost  universal,  three  or  four 
persons  standing  often  between  the  landowner  and 
the  actual  occupier,  the  result  being  that  the  condition 
of  the  latter  was  one  of  chronic  semi-starvation.  So 
little  was  disloyalty  at  the  root  of  the  matter,  that 
in  a  contemporary  letter,  written  by  Robert  Fitz- 
gerald, the  Knight  of  Kerry,  it  is  confidently  asserted 
that,  were  a  recruiting  officer  to  be  sent  to  the  dis- 
trict, the  people  would  gladly  flock  to  the  standard 
of  the  king,  although,  he  significantly  adds,  "  it  seems 
to  me  equally  certain  that  if  the  enemy  effects  a  land- 
ing within  a  hundred  miles  of  these  people,  they  will 
most  assuredly  join  them."  ^ 

The  tithe  system  was  another  all  but  unendurable 
burden,  and  it  was  against  the  tithe  proctors  that  the 
worst  of  the  Whiteboy  outrages  were  committed. 
That  these  outrages  had  little  directly  to  say  to 
religion  is,  however,  clear,  from  the  fact  that  the 
tithe  system  was  nearly  as  much  detested  by  the  Pro- 
testant landowners  as  by  their  tenants.  In  the  north 
risings  of  a  somewhat  similar  character  had  broken 
out  chiefly  amongst  Protestants  of  the  lower  classes, 

'  "  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,"  vol.  iv. 
p.  340. 


The  ^^ peep  of  day^'  boys.  345 

who  gathered  themselves  into  bands  under  the  name 
of  "  Oak  boys  "  and  "  Steel  boys."  The  grievances  of 
which  they  complained  being,  however,  for  the  most 
part  after  a  while  repealed,  they  gradually  dispersed, 
and  were  heard  of  no  more.  In  the  south  it  was 
otherwise,  and  the  result  has  been  that  Whiteboy  con- 
spiracies continued,  under  different  names,  to  be  a 
terror  to  the  country,  and  have  so  continued  down  to 
our  own  da}'. 

As  long  as  the  volunteers  remained  embodied 
there  was  an  all  but  complete  cessation  of  these  local 
disturbances,  but  upon  their  disbandment  they  broke 
out  with  renewed  force.  Many  too  of  the  volun- 
teers themselves,  who,  although  disbanded,  retained 
their  arms,  began  to  fall  under  new  influences,  and 
to  lose  their  earlier  reputation.  "  What  had  originally," 
in  Grattan's  words,  "  been  the  armed  property  of  Ireland, 
was  becoming  its  armed  beggary."  A  violent  sectarian 
spirit,  too,  was  beginning  to  show  itself  afresh,  although 
as  yet  chiefly  amongst  the  lowest  and  most  igno- 
rant classes.  A  furious  faction  war  had  broken  out  in 
the  North  of  Ireland,  between  Protestants  and  Roman 
Catholics.  The  former  had  made  an  association 
known  as  the  "  Peep-of-day  boys,"  to  which  the  latter 
had  responded  by  one  called  the  "Defenders."  In  1795 
a  regular  battle  was  fought  between  the  two,  and  the 
"  Defenders "  were  defeated  with  the  loss  of  many 
lives.  The  same  year  saw  the  institution  of  Orange 
Lodges  spring  into  existence,  and  spread  rapidly  over 
the  north.  Amongst  the  more  educated  classes  a 
strongly  revolutionary  feeling  was  beginning  to  spread, 
especially  in  Belfast.     The  passionate  sympathy  of 


34^  DANGER   SIGNALS. 

the  Presbyterians  for  America  had  awakened  a 
vehemently  republican  spirit,  and  the  rising  tide 
of  revolution  in  France,  found  a  loudly  reverberating 
echo  in  Ireland,  especially  amongst  the  younger  men. 
In  1791  in  Belfast,  the  well-known  "Society  of 
United  Irishmen "  came  into  existence  and  its 
leaders  were  eager  to  combine  this  democratic 
movement  in  the  north  with  the  recently  recon- 
structed Roman  Catholic  committee  in  Dublin.  All 
these,  it  is  plain,  were  elements  of  danger  which 
required  careful  watching.  The  one  hope,  the  one 
necessity,  as  all  who  were  not  blinded  by  passion  or 
prejudice  saw  plainly,  lay  in  a  reformed  Parliament — 
one  which  would  represent,  no  longer  a  section,  but  the 
whole  community.  To  combine  to  procure  this,  and 
to  sink  all  religious  differences  in  the  common  weal, 
was  the  earnest  desire  of  all  who  genuinely  cared  for 
their  country,  whether  within  or  without  the  Parlia- 
ment. Of  this  programme,  the  members  even  of 
the  United  Irishmen  were,  in  the  first  instance, 
ardent  exponents,  and  their  demands,  ostensibly 
at  least,  extended  no  further.  In  the  words  of  the 
oath  administered  to  new  members,  they  desired  to  for- 
ward "  an  identity  of  interests,  a  communion  of  rights, 
and  a  union  amongst  Irishmen  of  all  religious  per- 
suasions, without  which  every  reform  in  Parliament 
must  be  partial,  not  national,  inadequate  to  the  wants, 
delusive  to  the  wishes,  and  insufficient  for  the  freedom 
and  happiness  of  the  country." 


LII. 

THE   FITZWILLIAM   DISAPPOINTMENT. 

The  eagerness  shown  at  this  time  by  the  principal 
Irish  Protestants  to  give  full  emancipation  to  their 
Roman  Catholic  countrymen  is  eminently  creditable  to 
them,  and  stands  in  strong  relief  to  the  bitterness  on 
both  sides,  both  in  earlier  and  latter  times.  By  1792 
there  seems  to  have  been  something  almost  like  unan- 
imity on  the  subject.  What  reads  strangest  perhaps 
to  our  ears, 600  Belfast  Protestant  householders  warmly 
pressed  the  motion  on  the  Government.  In  a  work, 
published  six  years  earlier,  Lord  Sheffield,  though  him- 
self opposed  to  emancipation,  puts  this  unanimity  in 
unmistakable  words.  "It  is  curious,"  he  says,  "to 
observe  one-fifth  or  one-sixth  of  a  nation  in  possession 
of  all  the  power  and  property  of  the  country,  eager  to 
communicate  that  power  to  the  remaining  four-fifths, 
which  would,  in  effect,  entirely  transfer  it  from  them- 
selves." 

The  generation  to  which  Flood,  Lucas,  and  Lord 
Charlmont  had  belonged,  and  who  were  almost  to  a 
man  opposed  to  emancipation,  was  fast  passing  away, 
and  amongst  the  more  independent  men  of  the  younger 
generation  there  were  few  who  had  not  been  won  over 


("A  man  of  importance.") 

THE     EARL     OF     MOIRA. 

By  Gillray. 


PITT  AND   EMANCIPATION.  349 

to  Grattan's  view  of  the  matter.  In  England,  too,  cir- 
cumstances were  beginning  to  push  many,  even  of  those 
hitherto  bitterly  hostile  to  concession,  in  the  same 
direction.  The  growing  terror  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion had  loosened  the  bonds  of  the  party,  and  the 
hatred  which  existed  between  the  Jacobins  and  the 
Catholic  clerical  party,  inclined  the  Government  to 
extend  the  olive  branch  to  the  latter  in  hopes  of 
thereby  securing  their  support.  Pitt  was  personally 
friendly  to  emancipation,  and  in  December,  1792,  a 
deputation  of  five  delegates  from  the  Catholic  con- 
vention in  Dublin  was  graciously  received  \>y  the 
king  himself,  and  returned  under  the  impression  that 
all  religious  disabilities  were  forthwith  to  be  abolished. 
Next  month,  January,  1793,  at  the  meeting  of  the 
Irish  Parliament,  a  Bill  was  brought  in  giving  the 
right  of  voting  to  all  Catholic  forty-shilling  freeholders, 
and  throwing  open  also  to  Catholics  the  municipal 
franchise  in  the  towns.  Although  vehemently  opposed 
by  the  Ascendency,  this  Bill,  being  supported  by  the 
Opposition,  passed  easily  and  received  the  royal 
assent  upon  April  gth. 

It  was  believed  to  be  only  an  instalment  of  full  and 
free  emancipation  soon  to  follow.  In  1794,  several 
of  the  more  moderate  Whigs,  including  Edmund 
Burke  and  Lord  Fitzwilliam,  left  Fox,  and  joined 
Pitt.  One  of  the  objects  of  the  Whig  members  of 
this  new  coalition  was  the  admission  of  Irish  Roman 
Catholics  to  equal  rights  with  their  Protestant  fellow- 
country  men.  To  this  Pitt  at  first  demurred,  but  in 
the  end  agreed  to  grant  it  subject  to  certain  stipu- 
lations,   and     Lord     Fitzwilliam     was     accordingly 


35©         THE   FITZWILLIAM    DISAPPOINTMENT. 

appointed    Lord-Lieutenant,   and    arrived   in    Ireland 
in  January,  1795. 

His  appointment  awakened  the  most  vehement  and 
widely   expressed    delight.       He    was    known    to    be 
a    warm    supporter    of    emancipation.      He    was    a 
personal   friend  of  Grattan's,  and   a  man   in   whom 
all   who  had  the  interests  of  their  country  at  heart 
believed   that  they   could   confide.     He    had   himself 
declared   emphatically    that    he    would    "  never    have 
taken  office  unless  the  Roman  Catholics  were  to  be 
relieved  from  every  disqualification."     He  was  received 
in  Dubhn  with  enthusiastic  rejoicings.   Loyal  addresses 
from  Roman  Catholics  poured  in  from  every  part  of 
Ireland.     Large  supplies  were  joyfully  voted  by  the 
Irish  Parliament,  and,  although  he  reported  in  a  letter 
to  the  Duke  of  Portland  that  the  disaffection  amongst 
the  lower  orders  was  very  great,  on  the  other  hand  the 
better  educated  of  the  Roman  Catholics  were  loyal  to  a 
man.     For  the  moment  the  party  of  disorder  seemed 
indeed  to  have  vanished.     Grattan,  though  he  refused 
to  take  office,  gave  all  the  great  weight  of  his  support 
to  the  Government,  and  obtained  leave  to  bring  in  an 
Emancipation    Bill   with    hardly  a   dissentient  voice. 
The  extreme  Jacobine  party    ceased   apparently    for 
the  moment  to  have  any  weight  in  the  country.     Revo- 
lution  seemed   to  be  scotched,  and  the  dangers  into 
which    Ireland    had  been    seen    awhile    before  to  be 
rapidly  hastening,  appeared  to  have  passed  away. 

Suddenly  all  was  changed.  On  February  12th, 
leave  to  bringf  in  a  Bill  for  the  admission  of  Roman 
Catholics,  to  Parliament  was  moved  by  Grattan.  On 
February  9th,  a  letter  reached  Lord  Fitzwilliam  from 


RECALL   OF  FITZWILLTAM.  35 1 

Pitt,  which  showed  that  some  changes  had  taken  place 
in  the  intentions  of  the  Government,  but  no  suspicion 
of  the  extent  of  those  changes  was  as  yet  entertained. 
On  February  23rd,  however,  the  Duke  of  Portland 
wrote,  "by  the  king's  command,"  authorizing  Lord 
Fitzwilliam  to  resign.  The  law  officers  and  other 
officials  who  had  been  displaced  were  thereupon  re- 
stored to  their  former  places.  G rattan's  Bill  was 
hopelessly  lost,  and  all  the  elements  of  rebellion  and 
disaffection  at  once  began  to  seethe  and  ferment 
again. 

What  strikes  one  most  in  studying  these  proceed- 
ings is  the  curious  folly  of  the  whole  affair!  Why  was 
a  harbinger  of  peace  sent  if  only  to  be  immediately 
recalled.''  Why  were  the  hopes  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics, of  the  whole  country  in  fact,  raised  to  the  highest 
pitch  of  expectation,  if  only  that  they  might  be  dashed 
to  the  ground  ?  Pitt  no  doubt  had  a  very  difficult 
part  to  play.  George  III.  was  all  his  life  vehemently 
opposed  to  the  admission  of  Roman  Catholics  to  Par- 
liament. Two  of  the  officials  whom  Fitzwilliam 
had  dismissed,  Cooke,  the  Under  Secretary  of  State 
and  Beresford,  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  Customs, 
were  men  of  no  little  influence,  and  Beresford, 
immediately  upon  his  arrival  in  England  had  had  a 
personal  interview  with  the  king.  That  Pitt  knew  how 
critical  was  the  situation  in  Ireland  is  certain.  He  was 
not,  however,  prepared  to  resign  office,  and  short  of 
that  step  it  was  impossible  to  bring  sufficient  pressure 
to  bear  upon  the  king's  obstinacy.  His  own  preference 
ran  strongly  towards  a  Union  of  the  two  countries, 
and    with    this    end   in   view,  he   is   often   accused  of 


353         THE   FITZWILLIAM  DISAPPOINTMENT, 

having  been  cynically  indifTerent  as  to  what  disasters 
and  horrors  Ireland  might  be  destined  to  wade 
through  to  that  consummation.  This  it  is  difficult  to 
conceive  ;  nevertheless,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  rising  of  four  years  later  dated  from  this  decision, 
and  was  almost  as  directly  due  to  it  as  if  the  latter 
had  been  planned  with  that  object. 

From  this  point  the  stream  runs  darkly  and  steadily 
to  the  end.  Lord  Fitzwilliam's  departure  was  regarded 
by  Protestants  and  Catholics  alike  as  a  national 
calamity.  In  Dublin  shops  were  shut ;  people  put  on 
mourning,  and  his  carriage  was  followed  to  the  boat 
by  lamenting  crowds.  Grattan's  Bill  was  of  course 
lost,  and  the  exasperation  of  the  Catholics  rendered 
tenfold  by  the  disappointment.  "  The  demon  of  dark- 
ness," it  was  said,  "  could  not  have  done  more  mischief 
had  he  come  from  hell  to  throw  a  fire-brand  amongst 
the  people." 

Henceforward  the  Irish  Parliament  drops  away  into 
all  but  complete  insignificance.  After  two  or  three 
abortive  efforts  to  again  bring  forward  reform,  Grattan 
gave  up  the  hopeless  attempt,  and  retired  broken- 
hearted from  public  life.  The  "  United  Irishmen,"  in 
the  first  instance  an  open  political  body,  inaugurated 
and  chiefly  supported  by  Protestants,  now  rapidly 
changed  its  character.  Its  leaders  were  now  all 
at  heart  republicans,  and  thoroughly  impregnated 
with  the  leaven  of  the  French  Revolution.  It  was 
suppressed  and  apparently  broken  up  by  the  Govern- 
ment in  1795,  but  was  almost  immediately  afterwards 
reconstructed  and  re-organized  upon  an  immense 
scale.     Every  member    was  bound  to  take   an    oath 


THE 


UNITED   IRISHMEN. 


353 


of  secrecy,  and  its  avowed  object  had  become  the 
erection  by  force  of  a  republican  form  of  Government 
in  Ireland.  The  rebellion  was  bound  to  come  now, 
and  only  accident  could  decide  how  soon. 


RIGHT   HON.    EDMUND    BURKE. 

[From  a  sketch  from  life.) 


LIII. 


'ninety-eight. 


It  was  not  long  delayed.  The  Society  of  United 
Irishmen  had  now  grown  to  be  little  more  than  a  mere 
nest  of  Jacobinism,  filled  with  all  the  turbulent  and 
disaffected  elements  afloat  in  the  whole  country.  Of 
this  society  Wolfe  Tone  was  the  creator,  guide,  and 
moving  spirit.  Any  one  who  wishes  to  understand  the 
movement  rather  as  it  originally  took  shape  than  in 
the  form  which  it  assumed  when  accident  had  de- 
prived it  of  all  its  leaders,  should  carefully  study  his 
autobiography.  As  he  reads  its  transparent  pages, 
brimful  of  all  the  foolish,  generous  enthusiasms  of  the 
day,  he  will  find  it  not  a  little  hard,  I  think,  to  avoid 
some  amount  of  sympathy  with  the  man,  however 
much  he  may,  and  probably  will,  reprobate  the  cause 
which  he  had  so  at  heart. 

Amongst  the  other  leaders  of  the  rising  were  Lord 
Edward  Fitzgerald,  a  brother  of  the  Duke  of  Leinster, 
Arthur  O'Connor,  a  nephew  of  Lord  Longueville, 
Thomas  Addis  Emmett,  elder  brother  of  the  better 
known  Robert  Emmett — whose  attempted  rebellion  in 
1803,  w^s  a  sort  of  postscript  to  this  earlier  one — and 
the  two  Sheare  brothers.     Compared  to  Wolfe  Tone, 


ATD   FROM  FRANCE.  355 

however,  all  these  were  mere  amateurs  in  insurrection, 
and  pale  and  shadowy  dabblers  in  rebellion.  Lord 
Edward  was  an  amiable  warm-hearted  visionary, 
high-minded  and  gallant,  but  without  much  ballast,  and 
to  a  great  degree  under  the  guidance  of  others.  The 
mainspring  of  the  whole  movement,  as  has  been  seen, 
was  Protestant  and  Northern,  and  now  that  all  hope 
of  constitutional  reform  was  gone,  it  was  resolved  to 
appeal  openly  to  force  and  to  call  in  the  aid  of  the 
enemies  of  England  to  assist  in  the  coming  struggle. 
Insane  as  the  idea  appears,  looked  back  at  from 
this  distance,  it  evidently  was  not  viewed  in  the  same 
light  by  those  at  hand.  England  and  France,  it  must 
be  remembered,  were  at  fierce  war,  and  a  descent 
upon  the  Irish  coast  was  then,  as  afterwards  by 
Napoleon,  regarded  as  a  natural  and  obvious  part  of 
the  aggressive  policy  of  the  latter.  In  the  summer  of 
1796  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald  went  to  Paris  to  open 
negotiations  with  the  French  Directory,  and  there 
met  Wolfe  Tone,  who  had  been  induced  some  time 
before  to  leave  Ireland  in  order  to  avoid  arrest.  Lord 
Edward's  Orleanist  connection  proving  a  bar  to  his 
negotiations,  he  left  Paris,  and  the  whole  of  the 
arrangements  devolved  into  the  latter's  hand.  He 
so  fired  Carnot,  one  of  the  Directory,  and  still  more 
General  Hoche,  with  a  belief  of  the  feasibility  of 
his  scheme  of  descent,  that,  in  December  of  the 
same  year  a  French  fleet  of  forty-three  vessels  con- 
taining fifteen  thousand  troops  were  actually  de- 
spatched under  Hoche's  command,  Wolfe  Tone  being 
on  board  of  one  of  them,  which  vessels,  slipping  past 
the  English  fleet   in  the  Channel,  bore  down    upon 


^7. 


THEOBALD   WOLFE  TONE. 
{From  a  lithograph  after  a  sketch  by  Hullmandcl. ) 


HOC  HE   RETURNS    TO   FRANCE.  357 

the  Irish  coast,  and  suddenly  appeared  off  Cape 
Clear. 

All  Ireland  was  thrown  into  the  wildest  panic. 
There  were  only  a  small  body  of  troops  in  the  south 
and  not  a  war-ship  upon  the  coast.  The  peasantry 
of  the  district,  it  is  true,  showed  no  disposition  to  rise, 
but  for  all  that  had  the  French  landed,  nothing  could 
have  hindered  them  from  marching  upon  the  capital. 
But — "  those  ancient  and  unsubsidised  allies  of  Eng- 
land upon  which  English  ministers  depend  as  much  for 
saving  kingdoms  as  washerwomen  for  drying  clothes," 
— the  winds  again  stood  true  to  their  ancient  alliance. 
The  vessel  with  Hoche  on  board  got  separated  from  the 
rest  of  the  fleet,  and  while  the  troops  were  waiting  for 
him  to  arrive  a  violent  gale  accompanied  with  snow 
suddenly  sprang  up.  The  fleet  moved  on  to  Bear 
Island,  and  tried  to  anchor  there,  but  the  storm  in- 
creased, the  shelter  was  insufficient,  the  vessels 
dragged  their  anchors,  were  driven  out  to  sea  and 
forced  to  return  to  Brest.  The  ship  containing 
Hoche  had  before  this  been  forced  to  put  back  to 
France,  and  so  ended  the  first  and  by  far  the  most 
formidable  of  the  perils  which  threatened  England 
under  this  new  combination. 

One  very  unfortunate  result  of  the  narrowness 
of  this  escape  was  that  the  Irish  Executive — stung 
by  the  sense  of  their  own  supineness,  and  utterly 
scared  by  the  recent  peril — threw  themselves  into 
the  most  violent  and  arbitrary  measures  of  repression. 
The  Habeas  Corpus  Act  had  already  been  suspended, 
and  now  martial  law  was  proclaimed  in  five  of  the 
northern  counties  at    once.      The  committee   of  the 


358  'ninety-eight. 

United  Irishmen  was  seized,  the  office  of  their  organ 
T/ie  NortJicrn  Star  destroyed,  and  an  immense 
number  of  people  hurried  into  gaol.  What  was 
much  more  serious  throughout  the  proclaimed  dis- 
tricts, the  soldiery  and  militia  regiments  which  had 
been  brought  over  from  England  were  kept  under  no 
discipline,  but  were  allowed  to  ill-use  the  population 
almost  at  their  own  discretion.  Gross  excesses  were 
committed,  whole  villages  being  in  some  instances 
plundered  and  the  people  turned  adrift,  while  half 
hangings,  floggings  and  picketings,  were  freely  re- 
sorted to  to  extort  confessions  of  concealed  arms. 

Against  these  measures — so  calculated  to  precipi- 
tate a  rising,  and  by  which  the  innocent  and  well-dis- 
posed suffered  no  less  than  the  guilty — Grattan, 
Ponsonby,  and  other  members  of  the  Opposition 
protested  vehemently.  They  also  drew  up  and  laid 
before  the  House  a  Bill  of  reform  which,  if  passed, 
would,  they  pledged  themselves,  effectually  allay  the 
agitation  and  content  all  but  the  most  irreconcilable. 
Their  efforts,  however,  were  utterly  vain.  Many  of 
the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  were  them- 
selves in  a  state  of  panic,  and  therefore  impervious 
to  argument.  The  motion  was  defeated  by  an 
enormous  majority,  a  general  election  was  close  at 
hand,  and  feeling  the  fruitlessness  of  further  struggle 
Grattan,  as  already  stated,  refused  to  offer  himself 
for  re-election,  and  retired  despairingly  from  the 
scene. 

The  commander-in-chief.  Lord  Carhampton  and 
nis  subordinate  General  Lake  were  the  two  men 
directly  responsible  for  the  misconduct  of  the  troops 


FRESH  CONSPIRACIES.  359 

in  Ireland.  So  disgraceful  had  become  the  license 
allowed  that  loud  complaints  were  made  in  both  the 
English  Houses  of  Parliament,  in  consequence  of 
which  Lord  Carhampton  was  recalled  and  Sir  Ralph 
Abercromby  sent  in  his  place.  He  more  than  en- 
dorsed the  worst  of  the  accounts  which  had  been 
forwarded.  "  Every  cruelty  that  could  be  committed 
by  Cossacks  or  Calmucks,"  he  states,  "  has  been  com- 
mitted here."  "The  manner  in  which  the  troops  have 
been  employed  would  ruin,"  he  adds,  "  the  best  in 
Europe."  He  at  once  set  himself  to  change  the  system, 
to  keep  the  garrison  in  the  principal  towns,  and  to 
forbid  the  troops  acting  except  under  the  immediate 
direction  of  a  magistrate.  The  Irish  Executive 
however  was  in  no  mood  to  submit  to  these  prudent 
restrictions.  Angry  disputes  broke  out.  Lord 
Camden,  the  Lord-Lieutenant,  vacillated  from  side 
to  side,  and  the  end  was  that  in  April,  1797,  Sir 
Ralph  Abercromby  indignantly  resigned  the  com- 
mand, which  then  fell  into  General  Lake's  hands, 
and  matters  again  went  on  as  before. 

Meanwhile  the  failure  of  the  French  descent  under 
Hoche,  and  the  defeat  of  the  Dutch  fleet  at  the  battle 
of  Camperdown  in  the  autumn  of  1797,  had  determined 
Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald  and  the  other  chiefs  of 
the  executive  committee  to  attempt  an  independent 
rising.  Wolfe  Tone  was  still  in  France,  eagerly 
endeavouring  to  bring  about  a  fresh  expedition,  so 
that  their  councils  had  not  even  the  advantage  of 
his  guidance.  The  Government  had  full  information 
of  all  their  proceedings,  being  kept  well  informed 
by  spies,  several  of  whom  were  actually  enrolled  in 


LORD     EDWARD      FITZGERALD. 

{After  a  picture  by  Hamilton.) 


CAPTURE   AND   DEATH   OF    FITZGERALD.        361 

the  association.  In  March,  1798,  a  sudden  descent  was 
made  upon  the  executive  committee,  which  had  met 
at  the  house  of  a  man  called  Bond,  and  a  number 
of  delegates  and  several  leaders  arrested.  Lord 
Edward,  however,  received  warning  and  went  into 
concealment,  and  it  was  while  in  hiding  that  he 
hastily  concerted  a  scheme  for  a  general  rising,  which 
was  now  definitely  fixed  to  take  place  upon  the  24th 
of  May. 

Only  a  few  days  before  this  date  his  hiding-place 
was  betrayed  to  the  Government  by  a  man  named 
Magan.  A  guard  of  soldiers  was  sent  to  arrest  him, 
and  a  desperate  struggle  took  place,  in  the  course  of 
which  the  captain  of  the  guard  was  fatally  stabbed, 
while  Lord  Edward  himself  received  a  bullet  on  the 
shoulder  from  the  effects  of  which  he  shortly  after- 
wards died  in  goal.  Within  a  day  or  two  of  his  arrest 
all  the  other  leaders  in  Dublin  were  also  seized  and 
thrown  into  prison. 

The  whole  of  the  executive  committee  were  thus 
removed  at  one  blow,  and  the  conspiracy  left  with- 
out head.  In  estimating  the  hideous  character  finally 
assumed  by  the  rising  this  fact  must  never  be 
forgotten.  The  sickening  deeds  committed  while  it 
was  at  its  height  were  committed  by  a  mass  of 
ignorant  men,  maddened  by  months  of  oppression,  and 
deprived  of  their  leaders  at  the  very  moment  they 
most  required  their  control. 

In  the  meantime  the  24th  of  May  had  come, 
and  the  rising  had  broken  out.  The  non-arrival 
of  the  daily  mail-coaches  was  to  be  the  signal, 
and  these  were    stopped    and    burnt   by    the    insur- 


362  'NINETY-EIGHT. 

gents  in  four  different  directions  at  once.  In 
Kildare  and  Meath  scattered  parties  of  soldiers  and 
yeomanry  were  attacked  and  killed,  and  at  Pros- 
perous the  barracks  were  set  on  fire,  and  the  troops 
quartered  in  it  all  burnt  or  piked.  In  Dublin 
prompt  measures  had  been  taken,  and  the  more  loyal 
citizens  had  enrolled  themselves  for  their  own  de- 
fence, so  that  no  rising  took  place  there,  the  result 
being  that  the  outlying  insurgents  found  themselves 
isolated.  In  the  north  especially,  where  the  whole 
movement  had  taken  its  rise,  and  where  the  revo- 
lutionists had  long  been  organized,  the  actual  rising 
was  thus  of  very  trifling  importance,  and  the  whole 
thing  was  easily  stamped  out  within  a  week. 

It  was  very  different  in  Wexford.  Here  from  the 
beginning  the  rising  had  assumed  a  religious  shape, 
and  was  conducted  with  indescribable  barbarity. 
Yeomanry  corps  and  bodies  of  militia  had  been 
quartered  in  the  county  for  months,  and  many  acts 
of  tyranny  had  been  committed.  These  were 
now  hideously  avenged.  Several  thousand  men  and 
women,  armed  chiefly  with  pikes  and  scythes,  collected 
together  on  the  hill  of  Oulart  under  the  guidance  of 
a  priest  named  Father  John  Murphy,  They  were 
attacked  by  a  small  party  of  militia  from  Wexford, 
but  defeating  them,  burst  into  Ferns,  where  they  burnt 
the  bishop's  palace,  then  hastened  on  to  Enniscorthy, 
which  they  took  possession  of,  and  a  few  days  after- 
wards appeared  before  the  town  of  Wexford. 

Here  resistance  was  at  first  offered  them  by  Colonel 
Maxwell,  who  was  in  command  of  the  militia  regi- 
ments.    Nearly   all  the   Roman   Catholics,  however 


MASSACRE   OF  PROTESTANTS.  363 

under  his  orders  deserted,  the  rest  grew  disorganized 
and  fled,  and  the  end  was  that  the  militia  departed  and 
the  rebels  took  possession  triumphantly  of  the  town. 
It  at  once  became  the  scene  of  horrible  outrages. 
Houses  were  plundered  ;  many  of  the  Protestant 
citizens  murdered  ;  others  dragged  from  their  homes, 
and  cruelly  maltreated.  Bagenal  Harvey,  a  United 
Irishman  and  a  Protestant,  who  had  been  imprisoned 
at  Wexford  by  the  Government,  was  released  and 
elected  general  of  the  rebels.  He  found  himself, 
however,  utterly  unable  to  control  them.  A  camp  had 
been  formed  upon  Vinegar  Hill,  near  Enniscorthy,  and 
from  it  as  a  centre  the  whole  district  was  overrun,  with 
the  exception  of  New  Ross,  where  most  of  the  available 
troops  had  been  concentrated.  The  wretched  Pro- 
testants, kept  prisoners  on  Vinegar  Hill,  were  daily 
taken  out  in  batches,  and  slaughtered  in  cold  blood, 
while  at  Scullabogue,  after  an  unsuccessful  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  rebels  to  take  New  Ross,  the  most 
frightful  episode  of  the  whole  rising  occurred  ;  a  barn 
containing  over  a  hundred  and  eighty  Protestant 
loyalists  collected  from  the  country  round  being  set 
on  fire,  and  all  of  them  perishing  in  the  flames. 

In  the  meanwhile  troops  were  rapidly  arriving  from 
Dublin.  Arklow  and  New  Ross  had  defended  them- 
selves gallantly,  and  the  rebels  had  fallen  back  from 
them  repulsed.  Vinegar  Hill  was  attacked  upon  June 
2 1st  by  General  Lake,  and  after  a  struggle  the  rebels 
fled  precipitately,  and  were  slaughtered  in  great 
numbers.  The  day  before  this  Father  Roche  and  the 
rebels  under  him  were  met  outside  Wexford  and  also 
put  to  flight  after  hard  fighting.     Inside  the  town  a 


364  'ninety-eight. 

horrible  butchery  was  the  same  day  perpetrated  by 
a  body  of  ruffians  upon  over  ninety  Protestant 
prisoners,  who  were  slaughtered  with  great  cruelty 
upon  the  bridge  leading  to  New  Ross,  and  only  the 
passionate  intervention  of  a  priest  named  Corrin 
hindered  the  deaths  of  many  more. 

With  the  recapture  of  Wexford  and  Vinegar  Hill 
the  struggle  ended.  Such  of  the  rebels  as  had  escaped 
the  infuriated  soldiery  fled  to  hide  themselves  in 
Wicklow  and  elsewhere.  Father  Michael  Murphy — 
believed  by  his  followers  to  be  bullet  proof — had  been 
already  killed  during  the  attack  on  Arklow.  Father 
Roche  was  hung  by  Lake's  order  over  the  bridge  at 
Wexford,  the  scene  of  the  late  massacres.  So  also 
was  the  unfortunate  Bagenal  Harvey,  the  victim 
rather  than  the  accomplice  of  the  crimes  of  others. 
Father  John  Murphy  was  caught  and  hung  at  Tallow, 
as  were  also  other  priests  in  different  parts  of  the 
country.  The  rising  had  been  just  long  enough,  and 
just  formidable  enough,  to  awaken  the  utmost  terror 
and  the  most  furious  thirst  for  vengeance,  yet  not 
formidable  enough  to  win  respect  for  itself  from  a 
military  point  of  view.  As  a  result  the  retribution 
exacted  jvas  terrible  ;  the  scenes  of  violence  which 
followed  being  upon  a  scale  which  went  far  to  cause 
even  the  excesses  committed  by  the  rebels  themselves 
to  pale  into  insignificance. 

Two  final  incidents,  either  of  which  a  few  months 
earlier  might  have  produced  formidable  results,  brings 
the  dismal  story  to  an  end.  In  August,  just  after  the 
rising  had  been  definitely  stamped  out,  General 
Humbert  with  a  little  over  a  thousand  French  troops 


DEATH   OF   WOLFE    TONE.  365 

under  his  command  landed  at  Killala,  where  he  was 
joined,  if  hardly  reinforced,  by  a  wild  mob  of  unarmed 
peasants.  From  Killala  he  advanced  to  Ballina,  de- 
feated General  Lake,  who  was  sent  against  him,  and 
moved  on  to  Sligo.  Shortly  afterwards,  however,  he 
found  himself,  after  crossing  the  Shannon,  confronted 
with  an  overwhelming  force  under  Lord  Cornwallis, 
who  had  recently  succeeded  Lord  Camden,  and 
held  double  offices  of  Lord-Lieutenant  and  Com- 
mander-in-chief Yielding  to  the  inevitable,  Humbert 
surrendered  at  discretion,  and  he  and  his  men  were 
received  with  due  courtesy  as  prisoners  of  war.  The 
account  given  by  the  bishop  of  Killala  who  was  kept 
prisoner  while  that  town  was  occupied  by  the  French, 
will  be  found  to  be  extremely  well  worth  reading. 

The  last  scene  of  the  drama  brings  Wolfe  Tone 
appropriately  back  upon  the  gloomy  stage.  When 
General  Humbert  sailed  for  Killala  a  much  larger 
French  force  under  General  Hardi  had  remained  behind 
at  Brest.  In  September  this  second  detachment  sailed, 
Wolfe  Tone  being  on  board  the  principal  vessel  called 
the  HocJie.  Outside  Lough  Swilly  they  were  overtaken 
by  an  English  squadron,  and  a  desperate  struggle 
ensued.  The  smaller  French  vessels  escaped,  but  the 
Hoche  was  so  riddled  with  shot  and  shell  as  to  be 
forced  to  surrender,  and  was  towed  by  the  victors  into 
Lough  Swilly.  Here  the  French  officers  including 
Wolfe  Tone  were  hospitably  entertained  at  dinner  by 
Lord  Cavan.  While  at  table  Tone  was  recognized  by 
an  old  school  friend,  and  was  at  once  arrested  and 
sent  prisoner  to  Dublin.  A  court  martial  followed, 
and  despite  his  own  plea  to  be  regarded  as  a  French 


366 


^NINETY-EIGHT. 


officer,  and  therefore,  if  condemned  shot,  he  was 
sentenced  to  be  hung.  In  despair  he  tried  to  kill 
himself  in  prison,  but  the  wound  though  fatal,  was 
not  immediately  so,  and  the  sentence  would  have 
been  carried  rigorously  out  but  for  the  intervention 
of  Curran,  who  moved  for  a  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus 
on  the  plea  that  as  the  courts  of  law  were  then  sitting 
in  Dublin,  a  court  martial  had  no  jurisdiction.  The 
plea  was  a  mere  technicality,  but  it  produced  the  re- 
quired delay,  and  Wolfe  Tone  died  quietly  in  prison. 


LIV. 


THE   UNION. 


By  the  month  of  August  the  last  sparks  of  the 
rebellion  of  '98  had  been  quenched.  Martial  law 
prevailed  everywhere.  The  terror  which  the  rising 
had  awakened  was  finding  its  vent  in  violent  actions 
and  still  more  violent  language,  and  Lord  Cornwallis, 
the  Lord-Lieutenant,  was  one  of  the  few  who  ven- 
tured to  say  that  enough  blood  had  been  shed,  and 
that  the  hour  for  mercy  had  struck.  The  ferocity 
with  which  the  end  of  the  contest  had  been  waged 
by  the  rebels  had  aroused  a  feeling  of  corresponding, 
or  more  than  corresponding  ferocity  on  the  other 
side.  That  men  who  a  few  months  before  had  trembled 
to  see  all  whom  they  loved  best  exposed  to  the 
savagery  of  such  a  mob  as  had  set  fire  to  the  barn  at 
Scullaboge,  or  murdered  the  prisoners  at  Rossbridge, 
should  have  been  filled  with  a  fury  which  carried 
them  far  beyond  the  necessities  of  the  case  is  hardly 
perhaps  surprising,  but  the  result  was  to  hurry  them 
in  many  instances  into  cruelties  fully  as  great  as  those 
which  they  intended  to  avenge. 

It  was  at  this  moment,  while  the  country  was  still 
racked  and  bleeding  at  every  pore  from  the  effects  of 


368  THE    UNION. 

the  recent  struggle,  that  Pitt  resolved  to  carry  out 
his  long  projected  plan  of  a  legislative  Union.  Public 
opinion  in  Ireland  may  be  said  for  the  moment  to 
have  been  dead.  The  mass  of  the  people  were  lying 
crushed  and  exhausted  by  their  own  violence.  Fresh 
from  a  contest  waged  with  gun  and  pike  and  torch, 
a  mere  constitutional  struggle  had  probably  little  or 
no  interest  for  them.  The  popular  enthusiasm  which 
the  earlier  triumphs  of  the  Irish  Parliament  had 
awakened  had  all  but  utterly  died  away  in  a  fratri- 
cidal struggle.  To  the  leaders  of  the  late  rebellion 
it  was  an  object  of  open  contempt,  if  not  indeed  ot 
actual  aversion.  Wolfe  Tone,  the  ablest  man  by  far 
on  the  revolutionary  side,  had  never  wearied  of  pour- 
ing contempt  upon  it.  In  his  eyes  it  was  the  great 
opponent  of  progress,  the  venal  slave  which  had  not 
only  destroyed  the  chances  of  a  successful  outbreak, 
and  whose  endeavour  had  been  to  keep  Ireland  under 
the  heel  of  her  tyrant.  To  him  the  opposition  as 
little  deserved  the  name  of  patriot  as  the  veriest 
place-men.  Grattan,  throughout  his  long  and  noble 
career  had  been  as  steadily  loyal,  and  as  steadily 
averse  to  any  appeal  to  force  as  any  paid  creature 
of  the  Government.  To  men  who  only  wanted  to 
break  loose  from  England  altogether,  to  found  an 
Irish  republic  as  closely  as  possible  upon  the  model 
then  offered  for  their  imitation  in  France,  anything 
like  mere  constitutional  opposition  seemed  not  con- 
temptible* merely,  but  ridiculous. 

This  explains  how  it  was  that  no  great  burst  of 
public  feeling — such  as  a  few  years  before  would  have 
made  the  project  of  a  Union  all    but  impossible — 


370  THE    UNION. 

was  now  to  be  feared.  Pitt  had  for  a  long  time 
firmly  fixed  his  mind  upon  it  as  the  object  to  be 
attained.  He  honestly  believed  the  existing  state 
of  things  to  be  fraught  with  peril  for  England, 
and  to  have  in  it  formidable  elements  of  latent 
danger,  which  a  war  or  any  other  sudden  emergency 
might  bring  to  the  front.  He  knew  too,  undoubtedly, 
that  no  opportunity  equally  favourable  for  carrying 
his  point  was  ever  likely  to  recur  again. 

He  accordingly  now  proceeded  to  take  his  measures 
for  securing  it  with  the  utmost  care,  and  the  most 
anxious  selection  of  agents.  Two  opposite  sets  of  in- 
ducements were  to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  two 
contending  factions.  To  the  Protestants,  fresh  from 
their  terrible  struggle,  the  thought  of  a  closer  union 
with  England  seemed  to  promise  greater  protection 
in  case  of  any  similar  outbreak.  Irish  churchmen 
too  had  been  always  haunted  with  a  dread  sooner  or 
later  of  the  disestablishment  of  their  Church,  and  a 
union,  it  was  argued,  with  a  country  where  Protestants 
constituted  the  vast  majority  of  the  population,  would 
render  that  peril  for  ever  impossible,  and  it  was 
agreed  that  a  special  clause  to  that  effect  should 
be  incorporated  in  the  Act  of  Union.  To  the 
Roman  Catholics  a  totally  different  set  of  induce- 
ments were  brought  forward.  The  great  bait  was 
Emancipation,  which  they  were  privately  assured 
would  never  be  carried  as  long  as  the  Irish  Parliament 
existed,  but  might  safely  be  conceded  once  it  had 
ceased  to  exist.  No  actual  pledge  was  made  to  that 
effect,  but  there  was  unquestionably  an  understanding, 
and  Lord  Castlereagh,the  Chief  Secretary,  was  untiring 


THE    UNION  POSTPONED.  37 1 

in  his  efforts   to  lull  them  into   security   upon  this 
point. 

So  much  discrepancy  of  statement  still  prevails  upon 
the  whole  subject  that  it  is  extremely  difficult  to 
ascertain  what  really  was  the  prevailing  sentiment  in 
Ireland  at  this  time  for  and  against  the  project  of  a 
Union.  In  Ulster  the  proposal  seems  certainly  to 
have  been  all  but  unanimously  condemned,  and  in 
Dublin,  too,  the  opposition  to  it  was  vehement  and 
unhesitating,  but  in  other  parts  of  the  country  it 
seems  to  have  met  with  some  support,  especially 
in  Galway  and  Tipperary.  In  January,  1799,  Par- 
liament met,  and  the  proposal  was  brought  forward  in 
a  speech  from  the  throne,  but  encountered  a  violent 
opposition  from  all  the  remaining  members  of  the 
patriotic  party.  Grattan,  who  had  returned  to  Parlia- 
ment for  the  express  purpose,  eloquently  defended  the 
rights  of  the  Irish  legislature,  and  was  supported  by 
Sir  John  Parnell,  by  Plunkett,  and  by  all  the  more 
prominent  members  of  the  opposition.  After  a 
debate  which  lasted  nearly  twenty-two  hours,  a 
division  was  called,  and  the  numbers  were  found  to 
be  equal  ;  another  fierce  struggle,  and  this  time  the 
Government  were  beaten  by  five  ;  thus  the  proposal 
for  the  time  was  lost. 

Not  for  long  though.  Pitt  had  thoroughly  made 
up  his  mind,  and  was  bent  on  carrying  his  point  to  a 
successful  issue.  Most  of  those  v/ho  had  voted  against 
the  Union  were  dismissed  from  office,  and  after  the 
prorogation  of  Parliament,  the  Government  set  to 
work  with  a  determination  to  secure  a  majority  before 
the   next   session.      There   was   only   one   means  of 


372  THE    UNION. 

effecting  this,  and  that  means  was  now  employed. 
Eighty- five  boroughs — all  of  which  were  in  the  hands 
of  private  owners — would  lose  their  members  if  a 
Union  were  passed,  and  all  these,  accordingly,  it  was 
resolved  to  compensate,  and  no  less  than  a  million 
and  a  quarter  of  money  was  actually  advanced  for 
that  purpose,  while  for  owners  less  easily  reached  by 
this  means  peerages,  baronetcies,  steps  in  the  peerage, 
and  similar  inducements,  were  understood  to  be 
forthcoming  as  an  equivalent. 

It  is  precisely  at  this  point  that  controversy  grows  ' 
hottest,  and  where  it  becomes  hardest,  therefore,  to 
see  a  clear  way  between  contending  statements, 
which  seem  to  meet  and  thrust  one  another,  as  it 
were  at  the  very  sword's  point.  That  the  sale  of 
parliamentary  seats — so  shocking  to  our  reformed 
eyes — was  not  regarded  in  the  same  light  at  the  date 
of  the  Irish  Union  is  certain,  and  in  questions  of  ethics 
contemporary  judgment  is  the  first  and  most  impor- 
tant point  to  be  considered.  The  sale  of  a  borough 
carried  with  it  no  more  necessary  reprobation  then 
than  did  the  sale  of  a  man,  say,  in  Jamaica  or  Virginia, 
Boroughs  were  bought  and  sold  in  open  market> 
and  many  of  them  had  a  recognized  price,  so  much 
for  the  current  session,  so  much  more  if  in  perpetuity. 
We  must  try  clearly  to  realize  this,  in  order  to 
approach  the  matter  fairly,  and,  as  far  as  possible, 
to  put  the  ugly  word  "  bribery  "  out  of  our  thoughts, 
at  all  events  not  allow  it  to  carry  them  beyond  the 
actual  facts  of  the  case.  Pitt,  there  is  no  question, 
had  resolved  to  carry  his  point,  but  we  have  no  right 
to    assume    that    he   wished    to   carry   it    by   corrupt 


A   MATTER   FOR    CONTROVERSY.  373 

means,  and  the  fact  that  those  who  opposed  it  were 
to  be  indemnified  for  their  seats  no  less  than  those 
who  promoted  it,  makes  so  far  strongly  in  his  favour. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  impression  which  any  given 
transaction  leaves  upon  the  generation  which  has 
actually  witnessed  it  is  rarel}'  entirely  wrong,  and  that 
the  impression  produced  by  the  carrying  of  the  Irish 
Union — almost  equally  upon  its  friends  and  its  foes 
— was,  to  put  it  mildly,  unfavourable,  few  will  be  dis- 
posed to  deny.  Over  and  above  this  general  testi- 
mony, we  have  the  actual  letters  of  those  who  were 
mainly  instrumental  in  carrying  it  into  effect,  and  it 
is  difficult  to  read  those  of  Lord  Cornwallis  without 
perceiving  that  he  at  least  regarded  the  task  as  a 
repellent  one,  and  one  which  as  an  honourable  man 
he  would  gladly  have  evaded  had  evasion  been  pos- 
sible. It  is  true  that  Lord  Castlereagh,  who  was 
associated  intimately  with  him  in  the  enterprise, 
shows  no  such  reluctance,  but  then  the  relative  cha- 
racters of  the  two  men  prevent  that  circumstance  from 
having  quite  as  much  weight  as  it  otherwise  might. 

The  fact  is  that  the  whole  affair  is  still  enveloped 
in  such  a  hedge  of  cross-statement  and  controversy, 
that  in  spite  of  having  been  eighty-seven  years  before 
the  world,  it  still  needs  careful  elucidation,  and  the 
last  word  upon  it  has  certainly  not  yet  been  written. 
To  attempt  anything  of  the  sort  here  would  be 
absurd,  so  we  must  be  content  with  simply  following 
the  actual  course  of  events. 

The  whole  of  that  memorable  summer  was  spent 
carrying  out  the  orders  of  the  Prime  Minister.  The 
Lord- Lieutenant  and  the  Chief  Secretary  travelled  in 


MARQUIS   CORNWALLIS. 
{Engraved  by  yames  Stow  from  an  original  drawing  by  S.  D.  Koster.) 


THE    UNION   CARRIED.  375 

person  round  Ireland  to  assist  in  the  canvass,  and 
before  the  Parliament  met  again  the  following  January, 
they  were  able  to  report  that  they  had  succeeded. 
Grattan  had  been  suffering  from  a  severe  illness,  and 
v/as  still  almost  too  ill  to  appear.  He  came,  however, 
and  his  wonted  eloquence  rose  to  the  occasion.  He 
appealed  in  the  most  moving  and  passionate  terms 
against  the  destruction  of  the  Parliament.  Even  then 
there  were  some  who  hoped  against  hope  that  it  might 
be  saved.  At  the  division,  however,  the  Government 
majority  was  found  to  be  overwhelming,  only  a 
hundred  members  voting  against  it.  The  assent  of 
the  Upper  House  had  already  been  secured,  and 
was  known  all  along  to  be  a  mere  formality.  And 
so  the  Union  was  carried. 

How  far  it  was  or  was  not  desirable  at  the  time ; 
how  far  it  was  or  was  not  indispensable  to  the  safety 
of  both  countries  ;  to  what  extent  Pitt  and  in  a  less 
degree  those  who  acted  under  him  were  or  were  not 
blameworthy  in  the  matter — are  points  which  may  be 
almost  indefinitely  discussed.  They  were  not  as 
blameworthy  as  they  are  often  assumed  to  have 
been,  but  it  is  difficult  honestly  to  see  how  we  are  to 
exonerate  them  from  blame  altogether.  The  theory 
that  the  end  justifies  the  means  has  never  been  a 
favourite  with  honourable  men,  and  some  at  least 
of  the  means  by  which  the  Union  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland  was  carried  would  have  left  fatal  stains 
upon  the  noblest  cause  that  ever  yet  inspired  the  breast 
of  man.  Early  in  the  last  century  Ireland  through  her 
Parliament  had  herself  proposed  a  legislative  union, 
and  England  had  rejected  her  appeal.     Had  it  been 


Z7^ 


THE    UNION. 


accomplished  then,  or  had  it  been  brought  about  in 
the  same  fashion  as  that  which  produced  the  Union 
between  Scotland  and  England,  it  might  have  been 
accepted  as  a  boon  instead  of  a  curse,  and  in  any  case 
could  have  left  no  such  bitter  and  rankling  memories 
behind  it.  It  is  quite  possible,  and  perfectly  logical, 
for  a  man  to  hold  that  a  Union  between  the  two 
countries  was  and  is  to  the  advantage  of  both,  and  yet 
to  desire  that  when  it  did  come  about  it  had  been 
accomplished  in  almost  any  other  conceivable  way. 


CRYPT   OF   CHRIST   CHURCH    CATHEDRAL. 


LV. 

O'CONNrLL  AND   CATHOLIC   EMANCIPATION. 

Another  century  had  now  dawned,  and,  like  the 
last,  it  was  heralded  in  with  great  changes  in  Ireland. 
More  than  change,  however,  is  needed  for  improve- 
ment. "  Phis  qa  change  plus  cest  la  mane  chose  "  has 
been  said  of  French  politics,  and  is  at  least  equally 
applicable  to  Irish  ones.  The  Union  had  not  brought 
union,  and  the  years  which  followed  it  were  certainly 
no  great  improvement  on  those  that  had  preceded 
them.  The  growth  of  political  institution  is  not  so 
naturally  stable  in  Ireland  that  the  lopping  down  of 
one  such  institution  tended  to  make  the  rest  stronger 
or  more  healthy.  It  was  a  tree  that  had  undoubtedly 
serious  flaws,  and  whose  growing  had  not  been  as 
perfect  as  it  might  have  been,  but  it  had  admittedly 
borne  some  good  fruit,  and  might  have  borne  better 
had  it  been  left  alone.  Anyhow  it  was  gone,  and  the 
history  of  the  next  twenty-nine  years  is  a  confused 
and  distracting  medley  of  petty  outbreaks — that  in 
1803  of  which  Robert  Emmett  was  the  leader  being 
the  most  important — and  of  recurrent  acts  of  repres- 
sion, out  of  the  monotonous  welter  of  which  one  great 


ROBERT    EMMET. 
{From  a  stipple  engraving  by  J .  Heath.) 


THE   CATHOLIC  ASSOCIATION.  379 

figure  presently  rises  like  a  colossus,  till  it  comes  to 
dominate  the  w'hole  scene. 

At  a  meeting  of  Catholic  citizens  in  Dublin  in  1800 
to  protest  against  the  Union,  Daniel  O'Connell,  then  a 
young  barrister  of  twenty-six,  made  his  first  public 
speech,  and  from  that  time  forward  his  place  as  a 
leader  may  be  said  to  have  been  fixed.  A  Catholic 
Association  had  some  years  earlier  been  foimed,  and 
of  this  he  soon  became  the  chief  figure,  and  his  efforts 
were  continually  directed  towards  the  relief  of  his  co- 
religionists. In  18 1 5  a  proposal  had  been  made  by 
the  Government  that  Catholic  Emancipation  should 
be  granted,  coupled  with  a  power  of  veto  in  the 
appointment  of  Catholic  bishops,  and  to  this  com- 
promise a  considerable  Catholic  party  was  favourable, 
Richard  Lalor  Shell — next  to  O'Connell  by  far  the 
ablest  and  most  eloquent  advocate  for  Emancipation 
— supported  it ;  even  the  Pope,  Pius  VI I.,  declared  that 
he  felt  "  no  hesitation  in  conceding  it."  O'Connell, 
however,  opposed  it  vehemently,  and  so  worked  up 
public  opinion  against  it  that  in  the  end  he  carried 
his  point,  and  it  was  agreed  that  no  proposal  should 
be  accepted  which  permitted  any  external  interference 
with  the  Catholic  Church  of  Ireland.  This  was  his 
first  decisive  triumph. 

O'Connell's  buoyancy  and  indomitable  energy  im- 
parted much  of  its  own  impulse  to  a  party  more 
dead  and  dispirited  than  we  who  have  only  known  it 
in  its  resuscitated  and  decidedly  dominant  state  can 
easily  conceive.  In  1823  a  new  Irish  Catholic  As- 
sociation was  set  on  foot,  of  which  he  was  the  visible 
life  and  soul.     It  is  curious  to  note  how  little  enthu- 


380      O' CONK  ELL   AND   CATHOLIC  EMANCIPATION. 

siasm  its  proceedings  seem  at  first  to  have  awakened, 
especially  amongst  the  priesthood.  At  a  meeting  on 
February  4,  1824,  the  necessary  quorum  of  ten 
members  running  short,  it  was  only  supplied  by 
O'Connell  rushing  downstairs  to  the  book-shop  over 
which  the  association  met,  and  actually  forcing  up- 
stairs two  priests  whom  he  accidently  found  there, 
and  it  was  by  the  aid  of  these  unwilling  coadjutors 
that  the  famous  motion  for  establishing  the  "Catholic 
rent"  was  carried.  No  sooner  was  this  fund  established, 
however,  than  it  was  largely  subscribed  for  all  over  the 
country,  and  in  a  wonderfully  short  time  the  whole 
priesthood  of  Ireland  were  actively  engaged  in  its 
service.  The  sums  collected  were  to  be  spent  in 
parliamentary  expenses,  in  the  defence  of  Catholics, 
and  in  the  cost  of  meetings.  In  1825  the  association 
was  suppressed  by  Act  of  Parliament,  but  was  hardly 
dead  before  O'Connell  set  about  the  formation  of 
another,  and  the  defeat  of  the  Beresfords  at  the 
election  for  Waterford  in  1826  was  one  of  the  first 
symptoms  which  showed  where  the  rising  tide  was 
mounting  to. 

It  was  followed  two  years  later  by  a  much  more 
important  victory.  Although  Catholics  were  ex- 
cluded from  sitting  in  Parliament  the  law  which  forbade 
their  doing  so  did  not  preclude  their  being  returned 
as  members,  and  it  had  long  been  thought  that  policy 
required  the  election  of  some  Catholic,  if  only  that  the 
whole  anomaly  of  the  situation  might  be  brought 
into  the  full  light  of  day.  An  opportunity  soon 
occurred.  Mr.  Fitzgerald,  the  member  for  Clare, 
having  accepted  office  as  President  of  the  Board  of 


THE   CATHOLIC   RELIEF   BILL.  381 

Trade,  he  was  obliged  to  appeal  to  his  constituents 
for  re-election,  and  O'Connell  caught  at  the  sugges- 
tion made  to  him  of  contesting  the  seat.  His  pur- 
pose had  hardly  been  announced  before  it  created  the 
wildest  excitement  all  over  Ireland.  The  Catholic 
Association  at  once  granted  ^5,000  towards  the 
expenses,  and  ;^9,ooo  more  was  easily  raised  within  a 
week.  In  every  parish  in  Clare  the  priests  addressed 
their  parishioners  from  the  altar,  appealing  to  them 
to  be  true  to  the  representative  of  their  faith.  After 
a  vehement  contest,  victory  declared  itself  unhesi- 
tatingly for  O'Connell,  who  was  found  to  have 
polled  more  than  a  thousand  votes  over  his  an- 
tagonist. 

The  months  which  followed  were  months  of  the 
wildest  and  most  feverish  excitement  all  over  Ireland. 
O'Connell,  though  he  used  his  "  frank,"  did  not 
present  himself  at  the  House  of  Commons.  He 
devoted  his  whole  time  to  organizing  his  co-religion- 
ists, who  by  this  time  may  be  said  to  have  formed  one 
vast  army  under  his  direction.  In  every  parish  the 
priests  were  his  lieutenants.  Monster  meetings  were 
held  in  all  directions,  and  it  may  without  exaggera- 
tion be  said  that  hardly  a  Catholic  man  escaped  the 
contagion.  So  universal  a  demonstration  was  felt  to 
be  irresistible.  A  sudden  perception  of  the  necessity 
for  full  and  unqualified  Emancipation  sprang  up  in 
England.  Even  the  Duke  of  Wellington  bent  his 
head  before  the  storm.  In  the  king's  speech  of 
February,  1829,  a  revision  of  the  Catholic  disa- 
bilities was  advised.  The  following  month  the 
Catholic  Relief  Bill  was  carried  through  the  House 


382      O'CONNELL   AND   CATHOLIC   EMANCIPATION. 

of  Commons  by  a  majority  of  180,  and  received  the 
royal  assent  on  the  13th  of  April. 

Thus  the  victory  was  won,  and  won  too  without  a 
single  shackling  condition.     It  was  won,  moreover,  by 
the  efforts  of  a  single  individual,  almost  without  sup- 
port, nay,  in  several  cases  against  the  active  opposi- 
tion of  some  who  had  hitherto  been  its  warmest  advo- 
cates, a  fact  for  which  O'Connell's  own  violence  was 
undoubtedly  largely  responsible.     This  seems  to  be 
the  place  to  attempt  an  analysis  of  this  extraordinary 
man,  setting  down    the  good    and    the  evil    each  in 
their  due  proportion.     The  task,  however,  would   in 
truth    be    impossible.       For   good    or    ill    his    figure 
is  too   massive,   and  would    escape  our  half  inch  of 
canvas  were  we  to  try  and  set  it  there.     The  best 
description  of  him  compressible  in  a    few  words  is 
Balzac's  — "  He    was    the    incarnation    of  an    entire 
people."     Nothing  can  be   truer.     Not  only  was  he 
Irish  of  the  Irish,  but  Celt  of  the  Celts,  every  quality, 
every  characteristic,  good,  bad,  loveable,  or  the  reverse 
which  belongs  to  the  type  being  found  in  him,  only 
on    an    immense   scale.      To   the   average   Irishman 
of  his  day  he  stands   as  Mont    Blanc   might  stand 
were  it  set  down  amongst  the  Magillicuddy  Reeks. 
He  towers,  that  is  to  say,  above  his  contemporaries  not 
by  inches,  but  by  the  head  and  shoulders.     His  aims, 
hopes,  enthusiasms  were  theirs,  but  the  effective,  con- 
trolling power  was  his  alone.     He  had  a  great  cause, 
and  he  availed  himself  greatly  of  it,  and  to  this  and 
to  the  magnetic  and  all  but  magical  influence  of  his 
personality,  that  extraordinary  influence  which  he  for 
so  many  years  wielded  is  no  doubt  due. 


DANIEL  O'CONrfELL,    .If.P. 

{From  a  pen-and-ink  sketch  by  Doyle,  in  the  Department  of  Prints 

and  Drawings,  British  Museum.) 


3S4      O' CON  NELL   AND   CATHOLIC   EMANCIPATION. 

Two  points  must  be  here  set  down,  since  both  are 
of  great  importance  to  the  future  of  Ireland,  and  for 
both  O'Connell  is  clearly  responsible — whether  we 
regard  them  as  amongst  his  merits  or  the  reverse. 
He  first,  and  as  it  has  been  proved  permanently, 
brought  the  priest  into  politics,  with  the  unavoidable 
result  of  accentuating  the  religious  side  of  the  con- 
test and  bringing  it  into  a  focus.  The  bitterness 
which  three  generations  of  the  penal  code  had  en- 
gendered only,  in  fact,  broke  out  then.  The  hour 
of  comparative  freedom  is  often— certainly  not  alone 
in  Ireland — the  hour  when  the  sense  of  past  oppres- 
sion first  reveals  itself  in  all  its  intensity,  and  that 
biting  consciousness  of  being  under  a  social  ban  which 
grew  up  in  the  last  century  is  hardly  even  yet  extinct 
there,  and  certainly  was  not  extinct  in  O'Conncll's 
time.  Another,  and  an  equally  important  effect,  is 
also  due  to  him.  He  effectually,  and  as  it  has  proved 
finally,  snapped  that  tie  of  feudal  feeling  which, 
if  weakened,  still  undoubtedly  existed,  and  which 
was  felt  towards  the  landlord  of  English  extraction 
little  less  than  towards  the  few  remaining  Celtic  ones. 
The  failings  of  the  upper  classes  of  Ireland  of  his  day, 
and  long  before  his  day,  there  is  no  need  to  extenuate, 
but  it  must  not  in  fairness  be  forgotten  that  what 
seems  to  our  soberer  judgment  the  worst  of  those 
failings  —  their  insane  extravagance,  their  exalted 
often  ludicrously  inflated  notions  of  their  own  relative 
importance;  their  indifference  to,  sometimes  open  hos- 
tility to,  the  law — all  were  bonds  of  union  and  sources 
of  pride  to  their  dependants  rather  than  the  other 
way.     It    needed    a    yet    stronger    impulse — that    of 


THE   CONDITION  OF   THE   COUNTRY.  385 

religious  enthusiasm — to  break  so  deeply  rooted  and 
inherent  a  sentiment.  When  that  spark  was  kindled 
every  other  fell  away  before  it. 

As  regards  England,  unfortunately,  the  concession 
of  Emancipation  was  spoilt  not  merely  by  the  sense 
that  it  was  granted  to  force  rather  than  to  conviction, 
but  even  more  to  the  intense  bitterness  and  dislike  with 
which  it  was  regarded  by  a  large  proportion  of  Eng- 
lish Protestants.  A  new  religious  life  and  a  new 
sense  of  religious  responsibility  was  making  itself 
widely  felt  there.  The  eighteenth  century,  with  its 
easy-going  indifferentism,  had  passed  away,  and  one 
of  the  effects  of  this  new  revival  was  unhappih-  to 
reawaken  in  many  conscientious  breasts  much  of  the 
old  and  half-extinct  horror  of  Popery,  a  horror  which 
found  its  voice  in  a  language  of  intolerance  and 
bigotry  which  at  the  present  time  seems  scarcely  con- 
ceivable. 

The  years  which  followed  were  chiefly  marked  by 
a  succession  of  efforts  upon  O'Connell's  part  to  procure 
Repeal.  An  association  which  had  been  formed  by 
him  for  this  purpose  was  put  down  by  the  Government 
in  1830,  but  the  next  year  it  was  reformed  ufider  a  new 
name,  and  at  the  general  election  in  183 1  forty  mem- 
bers were  returned  pledged  to  support  Repeal.  The 
condition  of  Ireland  was  meanwhile  miserable  in  the 
extreme.  A  furious  tithe-war  was  raging,  and  many 
outrages  had  been  committed,  especially  against  tithe 
proctors,  the  class  of  men  who  were  engaged  in  col- 
lecting the  tax.  Ribbo'n  associations  and  other  secret 
societies  too  had  been  spreading  rapidly  underground. 
Of  such  societies  O'Connell  was  through  life  the  im- 


386      O'CONNELL   AND   CATHOLIC   EMANCIPATION. 

placable  enemy.  The  events  of  1798  and  1803  had 
left  an  indelible  impression  on  his  mind.  The  "  United 
Irishmen,"  in  his  own  words,  "  taught  me  that  all 
work  for  Ireland  must  be  done  openly  and  above 
board."  The  end  of  the  tithe  struggle,  however,  was 
happily  approaching.  In  1838  an  Irish  Tithes  Com- 
mutation Act  was  at  last  carried,  and  a  land  tax  in 
the  form  of  a  permanent  rent  charge  substituted. 

Repeal  was  now  more  than  ever  the  question  of  the 
hour,  and  to  Repeal  henceforward  O'Connell  devoted 
his  entire  energies.  In  1840  the  Loyal  National 
Repeal  Association  was  founded,  and  a  permanent 
place  of  meeting  known  as  Conciliation  Hall  estab- 
lished for  it  in  Dublin.  1841,  O'Connell  had  early 
announced,  would  be  known  henceforward  as  the  year 
of  Repeal,  and  accordingly  he  that  year  left  Eng- 
land and  went  to  Ireland,  and  devoted  himself  there 
to  the  work  of  organization.  A  succession  of  monster 
meetings  were  held  all  over  the  country,  the  far-famed 
one  on  Tara  Hill  being,  as  is  credibly  asserted,  at- 
tended by  no  less  than  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  people. 
Over  this  vast  multitude  gathered  together  around 
him  the  magic  tones  of  the  great  orator's  voice  swept 
triumphantly ;  awakening  anger,  grief,  passion,  delight, 
laughter,  tears,  at  its  own  pleasure.  They  were 
astonishing  triumphs,  but  they  were  dearly  bought. 
The  position  was,  in  fact,  an  impossible  one  to 
maintain  long,  O'Connell  had  carried  the  whole 
mass  of  the  people  with  him  up  to  the  very  brink  of 
the  precipice,  but  how  to  bring  them  safely  and  suc- 
cessfully down  again  was  more  than  even  he  could 
accomplish.      Resistance    he    had     always    steadily 


IMPRISONMENT   OF   O'CONNELL.  387 

denounced,  yet  every  day  his  own  words  seemed  to  be 
bringing  the  inevitable  moment  of  colHsion  nearer  and 
nearer.  The  crisis  came  on  October  the  5th.  A 
meeting  had  been  summoned  to  meet  at  Clontarf, 
near  Dublin,  and  on  the  afternoon  of  the  4th  the 
Government  suddenly  came  to  the  resolution  of  issu- 
ing a  proclamation  forbidding  it  to  assemble.  The 
risk  was  a  formidable  one  for  responsible  men  to  run. 
Many  of  the  people  were  already  on  their  way,  and 
only  O'Connell's  own  rapid  and  vigorous  measures  in 
sending  out  in  all  directions  to  intercept  them 
hindered  the  actual  shedding  of  blood. 

His  prosecution  and  that  of  some  of  his  principal 
adherents  was  the  next  important  event.  By  a  Dub- 
lin jury  he  was  found  guilty,  sentenced  to  two  years 
imprisonment,  and  conveyed  to  prison,  still  earnestly 
entreating  the  people  to  remain  quiet,  an  order  which 
they  strictly  obeyed.  The  jury  by  which  he  had 
been  condemned  was  known  to  be  strongly  biassed 
against  him,  and  an  appeal  had  been  forwarded  against 
his  sentence  to  the  House  of  Lords.  So  strong  there, 
too,  was  the  feeling  against  O'Connell,  that  little  ex- 
pectation was  entertained  of  its  being  favourably 
received.  Greatly  to  its  honour,  however,  the  sen- 
tence was  reversed  and  he  was  set  free.  His  im- 
prisonment had  been  of  the  lightest  and  least  onerous 
description  conceivable ;  indeed  was  ironically  described 
by  Mitchell  shortly  afterwards  as  that  of  a  man — 
"addressed  by  bishops,  complimented  by  Americans, 
bored  by  deputations,  serenaded  by  bands,  comforted 
by  ladies,  half  smothered  by  roses,  half  drowned  in 
champagne."     The  enthusiasm  shown  at  his  release 


388      O'CONXELL   AND    CATHOLIC   EMANCIPATION. 

was  frantic  and  delirious.  None  the  less  those  months 
in  Richmond  prison  proved  the  death-knell  of  his 
power.  He  was  an  old  man  by  this  time  ;  he  was 
already  weakened  in  health,  and  that  buoyancy  which 
had  hitherto  carried  him  over  any  and  every  obstacle 
never  again  revived.  The  "Young  Ireland"  party, 
the  members  of  which  had  in  the  first  instance  been 
his  allies  and  lieutenants,  had  now  formed  a  distinct 
section,  and  upon  the  vital  question  of  resistance  were 
in  fierce  hostility  to  all  his  most  cherished  principles. 
The  state  of  the  country,  too,  preyed  visibly  upon  his 
mind.  By  1846  had  begun  that  succession  of  disas- 
trous seasons  which,  by  destroying  the  feeble  barrier 
which  stood  between  the  peasant  and  a  cruel  death, 
brought  about  a  national  tragedy,  the  most  terrible 
perhaps  with  which  modern  Europe  has  been  con- 
fronted. This  tragedy,  though  he  did  not  live  to  see 
the  whole  of  it,  O'Connell — himself  the  incarnation  of 
the  people — felt  acutely.  Deep  despondency  took  hold 
of  him.  He  retired,  to  a  great  degree,  from  public  life, 
leaving  the  conduct  of  his  organization  in  the  hands 
of  others.  Few  more  tragic  positions  have  been  de- 
scribed or  can  be  conceived  than  that  of  this  old  man 
— so  loved,  so  hated,  so  reverenced,  so  detested— who' 
had  been  so  audaciously,  triumphantly  successful 
in  his  day,  and  round  whom  the  shadows  of  night 
were  now  gathering  so  blackly  and  so  swiftly.  Des- 
pair was  tightening  its  grip  round  the  hearts  of  all 
Irishmen,  and  it  found  its  strongest  hold  upon  the 
heart  of  the  greatest  Irishman  of  his  age.  Nothing 
speaks  more  eloquently  of  the  total  change  of  situa- 
tion than  ►  the  pity  and  respectful  consideration  ex- 


DEATH  OF  O' CON  NELL.  389 

tended  at  this  time  to  O'Connell  by  men  who  only 
recently  h:id  exhausted  every  possibility  of  vitupera- 
tion in  abuse  of  the  burly  demagogue.  In  1847  he 
resolved  to  lecve  Ireland,  and  to  end  his  days  in 
Rome.  His  last  public  appearance  was  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  where  an  attentive  and  deeply  re- 
spectful audience  hung  upon  the  faultering  and  barely 
articulate  accents  which  fell  from  his  lips.  In  a 
few  deeply  moving  words  he  appealed  for  aid  and 
sympathy  for  his  suffering  countrymen,  and  left 
the  House ;  within  a  few  months  he  had  died  at 
Genoa.  Such  a  bare  summary  leaves  necessarily 
whole  regions  of  the  subject  unexplored,  but,  let  the 
final  verdict  of  history  on  O'Connell  be  what  it  may, 
that  he  loved  his  country  passionately,  and  with  an 
absolute  disinterestedness  no  pen  has  ever  been  found 
to  question,  nor  can  we  doubt  that  whatever  else  may 
have  hastened  his  end  it  was  the  Famine  killed  him, 
almost  as  surely  as  it  did  the  meanest  of  its  victims. 


LVI. 

"YOUNG    IRELAND." 

The  camp  and  council  chamber  of  the  "  Young 
Ireland  "  party  was  the  editor's  room  of  The  Nation 
newspaper.  There  it  found  its  inspiration,  and  there 
its  plans  were  matured — so  far,  that  is,  as  they  can 
be  said  to  have  been  ever  matured.  For  an  emi- 
nently readable  and  all  things  considered  a  wonder- 
fully impartial  account  of  this  movement,  the  reader 
cannotdo  better  than  consult  SirCharlesGavan  Duffy's 
"  Four  Years  of  Irish  History,"  which  has  the  immense 
advantage  of  being  history  taken  at  first  hand,  written 
that  is  by  one  who  himself  took  a  prominent  part  in 
the  scenes  which  he  describes. 

The  most  interesting  figure  in  the  party  had,  how- 
ever, died  before  those  memorable  four  years  began. 
Thomas  Davis,  who  was  only  thirty  at  the  time  of  his 
death  in  1845,  was  a  man  of  large  gifts,  nay,  might 
fairly  be  called  a  man  of  genius.  His  poetry  is,  perhaps, 
too  national  to  be  appreciated  out  of  Ireland,  yet 
two,  at  least,  of  his  ballads,  "  Fontenoy  "  and  "  The 
Sack  of  Baltimore,"  may  fairly  claim  to  compare  with 
those  of  any  contemporary  poet.  His  prose  writings, 
too,  have'much  of  the  same  charm,  and,  if  he  had  no 


SMITH  O^BRIEN.  391 

time  to  become  a  master  of  any  of  the  subjects  of 
which  he  treats,  there  is  something  infectious  in  the 
very  spontaneousness  and,  as  it  were,  untaught  boyish 
energy  of  his  Irish  essays. 

The  whole  movement  in  fact  was,  In  the  first 
instance,  a  Hterary  quite  as  much  as  a  political  one. 
Nearly  all  who  took  part  in  it — Gavan  Duffy,  John 
Mitchell,  Meagher,  Dillon,  Davis  himself — were  very 
young  men,  many  fresh  from  college,  all  filled  with 
zeal  for  the  cause  of  liberty  and  nationality.  The 
graver  side  of  the  movement  only  showed  itself 
when  the  struggle  with  O'Connell  began.  At  first  no 
idea  of  deposing,  or  even  seriously  opposing  the  great 
leader  seems  to  have  been  intended.  The  attempt 
on  O'Connell's  part  to  carry  a  formal  declaration 
against  the  employment  under  any  circumstances 
of  physical  force  was  the  origin  of  that  division,  and 
what  the  younger  spirits  considered  "  truckling  to  the 
Whigs "  helped  to  widen  the  breach.  When,  too, 
O'Connell  had  partially  retired  into  the  background, 
his  place  was  filled  by  his  son,  John  O'Connell,  the 
"  Head  conciliator,"  between  whom  and  the  "  Young 
Irelanders  "  there  waged  a  fierce  war,  which  in  the  end 
led  to  the  indignant  withdrawal  of  the  latter  from 
the  Repeal  council. 

Before  matters  reached  this  point,  the  younger  camp 
had  been  strengthened  by  the  adhesion  of  Smith 
O'Brien,  who,  though  not  a  man  of  much  intellectual 
calibre,  carried  no  little  weight  in  Ireland.  His  age — 
which  compared  to  that  of  the  other  members  of  his 
party,  was  that  of  a  veteran — his  rank  and  position  as  a 
county  member,  above  all,  his  vaunted  descent  from 


392  "  YOUNG   IRELAND.^' 

Brian  Boroimhe,  all  made  him  an  ally  and  a  convert  to 
be  proud  of.  Like  the  rest  he  had  no  idea  at  first  of 
appealing  to  physical  force,  however  loudly  an  abstract 
resolution  against  it  might  be  denounced.  Resistance 
was  to  be  kept  strictly  within  the  constitutional  limits, 
indeed  the  very  year  of  his  junction  with  this  the 
extreme  left  of  the  Repeal  party.  Smith  O'Brien's 
most  violent  proceeding  was  to  decline  to  sit  upon 
a  railway  committee  to  which  he  had  been  sum- 
moned, an  act  of  contumacy  for  which  he  was  ordered 
by  the  House  of  Commons  into  the  custody  of  the 
Sergeant-at-Arms,  and  committed  to  an  extemporized 
prison,  by  some  cruelly  declared  to  be  the  coal- 
hole. "An  Irish  leader  in  a  coal-hole!"  exclaims 
Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy,  indignantly,  can  more 
unworthy  statement  be  conceived  ?  "  Regullus  in  a 
barrel,  however,"  he  adds,  rather  grandly,  "  was  not 
quite  the  last  one  heard  of  Rome  and  its  affairs  ! " 

In  Ireland  matters  were  certainty  sad  enough  and 
serious  enough  without  any  such  serio-comic  incidents. 
Famine  was  already  stalking  the  country  with  giant 
strides,  and  no  palliative  measures  as  yet  proposed 
seemed  to  be  of  the  slightest  avaiL  Early  in  January, 
1847,  O'Connell  left  on  that  journey  of  his  which 
was  never  completed,  and  by  the  middle  of  May 
Ireland  was  suddenly  startled  by  the  news  that  her 
great  leader  was  dead. 

The  effect  of  his  death  was  to  produce  a  sudden  and 
immense  reaction.  A  vast  revulsion  of  love  and  reve- 
rence sprang  up  all  over  the  country  ;  an  immense 
sense  of  his  incomparable  services,  and  with  it  a 
vehement  anger  against  all  who  had    opposed    him. 


yOHN  MITCHELL,  393 

Upon  the  "  Young  Ireland  "  party,  as  was  inevitable, 
the  weight  of  that  anger  fell  chiefly,  and  from  the 
moment  of  O'Connell's  death  whatever  claim  they 
had  to  call  themselves  a  national  party  vanished 
utterly.  The  men  "  who  killed  the  Liberator  "  could 
never  again  hope  to  carry  with  them  the  sutfrages  of 
any  number  of  their  countrymen. 

This  contumely,  to  a  great  degree  undeserved,  natu- 
rally reacted  upon  the  subjects  of  it.  The  taunt  of 
treachery  and  ingratitude  flung  at  them  wherever  they 
went  stung  and  nettled.  In  the  general  reaction  of 
gratitude  and  affection  for  O'Connell,  his  son  John 
succeeded  easily  to  the  position  of  leader.  The  older 
members  of  the  Repeal  Association  thereupon  rallied 
about  him,  and  the  split  between  them  and  the  younger 
men  grew  deeper  and  wider. 

A  wild,  impracticable  visionary  now  came  to  play 
a  part  in  the  movement.  A  deformed  misanthrope, 
called  James  Lalor,  endowed  with  a  considerable 
command  of  vague,  passionate  rhetoric,  began  to  write 
incentives  to  revolt  in  The  Nation.  These  growing 
more  and  more  violent  were  by  the  editor  at  length  pru- 
dently suppressed.  The  seed, however,  had  already  sown 
itself  in  another  mind.  John  Mitchell  is  described  by 
Mr.  Justin  McCarthy  as  "  the  one  formidable  man 
amongst  the  rebels  of  '48  ;  the  one  man  who  distinctly 
knew  what  he  wanted,  and  was  prepared  to  run  any 
risk  to  get  it."  Even  Mitchell,  it  is  clear,  would 
never  have  gone  as  far  as  he  did  but  for  the  im- 
pulse which  he  received  from  the  crippled  desperado 
in  the  background.  Lalor  was,  in  fact,  a  monomaniac, 
but  this  Mitchell  seems  to  have  failed  to  perceive.    To 


394  "  YOUNG   IRELAND.'* 

him  it  was  intolerable  that  any  human  being  should 
be  willing  to  go  further  and  to  dare  more  in  the  cause 
of  Ireland  than  himself,  and  the  result  was  that  after 
awhile  he  broke  away  from  his  connection  with  T/ie 
Nation,  and  started  a  new  organ  under  the  name  of 
T/ie  United  Irishmen,  one  definitely  pledged  from  the 
first  to  the  policy  of  action. 

From  this  point  matters  gathered  speedily  to  a  head. 
Mitchell's  newspaper  proceeded  to  fling  out  challenge 
after  challenge  to  the  Government,  calling  upon  the 
people  to  gather  and  to  "sweep  this  island  clear  of  the 
English  name  and  nation."  For  some  months  these 
challenges  remained  unanswered.  It  was  now,  how- 
ever, "  '48,"  and  nearly  all  Europe  was  in  revolution. 
The  necessity  of  taking  some  step  began  to  be  evident, 
and  a  Bill  making  all  written  incitement  of  insur- 
rection felony  was  hurried  through  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  almost  immediately  after  Mitchell 
was  arrested. 

Even  then  he  seems  to  have  believed  that  the 
country  would  rise  to  liberate  him.  The  country, 
however,  showed  no  disposition  to  do  anything  of  the 
sort.  He  was  tried  in  Dublin,  found  guilty,  sentenced 
to  fourteen  years'  transportation,  and  a  few  days 
afterwards  put  on  board  a  vessel  in  the  harbour  and 
conveyed  to  Spike  Island,  whence  he  was  sent  to 
Bermuda,  and  the  following  April  in  a  convict  vessel 
to  the  Cape,  and  finally  to  Tasmania. 

The  other  "Young  Irelanders,"  stung  apparently 
by  their  own  previous  inaction,  thereupon  rushed 
frantically-  into  rebellion.  The  leaders  —  Smith 
O'Brien,   Meagher,    Dillon,  and    others — went    about 


ARREST   OF   THE   LEADERS.  395 

the  country  holding  reviews  of  "  Confederates,"  as 
they  now  called  themselves,  a  proceeding  which 
caused  the  Government  to  suspend  the  Habeas  Corpus 
Act,  and  to  issue  a  warrant  for  their  arrest.  A  few 
more  gatherings  took  place  in  different  parts  of  the 
country,  a  few  more  ineffectual  attempts  were  made 
to  induce  the  people  to  rise,  one  very  small  collision 
with  the  police  occurred,  and  then  the  whole  thing 
was  over.  All  the  leaders  in  the  course  of  a  few  days 
were  arrested  and  Smith  O'Brien  and  Meagher  v/ere 
sentenced  to  death,  a  sentence  which  was  speedily 
changed  into  transportation.  Gavan  Duffy  was 
arrested  and  several  times  tried,  but  the  jury  always 
disagreed,  and  in  the  end  his  prosecution  was  aban- 
doned. The  "  Young  Ireland  "  movement,  however, 
was  dead,  and  never  again  revived. 


LVIL 

THE   FAMINE. 

All  the  time  the  earlier  of  the  foregoing  scenes  were 
being  enacted,  the  famine  had  been  drawing  its  python 
grasp  tighter  and  tighter  around  the  unhappy  island. 
The  first  symptoms  of  the  dread  potato  disease  showed 
themselves  in  the  autumn  of  1845,  and  even  that  year 
there  was  much  suffering,  though  a  trifle  to  what 
was  to  follow.  Many  remedies  were  tried,  both  to 
stop  the  blight  and  save  the  crops,  but  all  alike  proved 
unavailing.  The  next  year  the  potatoes  seemed  to 
promise  unusually  well,  and  the  people,  with  charac- 
teristic hopefulness,  believed  that  their  trouble  was 
over.  The  summer,  however,  was  very  warm  and  wet, 
and  with  August  there  came  on  a  peculiarly  dense 
white  fog,  which  was  believed  by  all  who  were  in 
Ireland  at  the  time  to  have  carried  the  blight  with  it 
in  its  folds.  Whether  this  was  the  case  or  not,  there 
is  no  doubt  that  in  a  single  fatal  night  nearly  the 
whole  potato  crop  over  the  entire  country  blackened, 
and  perished  utterly.  Then,  indeed,  followed  despair. 
Stupor  and  a  sort  of  moody  indifference  succeeded 
to  the  former  buoyancy  and  hopefulness.  There 
was  nothing  to    do  ;    no  other  food    was  attainable. 


GALWAY  AND   MAYO.  397 

The  fatal  dependence  upon  a  single  precarious  crop 
had  left  the  whole  mass  of  the  people  helpless  before 
the  enemy. 

Soon  the  first  signs  of  famine  began  to  appear. 
People  were  to  be  seen  wandering  about ;  seeking  for 
stray  turnips,  for  watercresses,  for  anything  that  would 
allay  the  pangs  of  hunger.  The  workhouses,  detested 
though  they  were,  were  crammed  until  they  could 
hold  no  single  additional  inmate.  Whole  families 
perished  ;  men,  women,  and  children  lay  down  in  their 
cabins  and  died,  often  without  a  sign.  Others  fell  by 
the  roadside  on  their  way  to  look  for  work  or  seek 
relief  Only  last  summer,  at  Ballinahinch  in  Conne- 
mara,  the  present  writer  was  told  by  an  old  man  that 
he  remembered  being  sent  by  his  master  on  a  message 
to  Clifden,  the  nearest  town,  and  seeing  the  people 
crawling  along  the  road,  and  that,  returning  the  same 
way  a  few  hours  later,  many  of  the  same  people  were 
lying  dead  under  the  walls  or  upon  the  grass  at  the 
roadside.  That  this  is  no  fancy  picture  is  clear  from 
local  statistics.  No  part  of  Ireland  suffered  worse 
than  Galway  and  Mayo,  both  far  more  densely  popu- 
lated then  than  at  present.  In  this  very  region  of 
Connemara  an  inspector  has  left  on  record,  having  to 
give  orders  for  the  burying  of  over  a  hundred  and 
thirty  bodies  found  along  the  roads  within  his  own 
district. 

Mr.  W.  E.  Forster,  who,  above  all  other  Englishmen^ 
deserved  the  gratitude  of  Ireland  for  his  efforts  during 
this  tragic  time,  has  left  terrible  descriptions  of  the 
scenes  of  which  he  was  himself  an  eye-witness,  espe- 
cially in  the  west.     "  The  town  of  Westport,"  he  tells 


39S  THE   FAMINE. 

US  in  one  of  his  reports,  "  was  itself  a  strange  and 
fearful  sight,  like  what  we  read  of  in  beleaguered 
cities ;  its  streets  crowded  with  gaunt  wanderers, 
sauntering  to  and  fro  with  hopeless  air  and  hunger- 
struck  look — a  mob  of  starved,  almost  naked  women 
around  the  poor-house  clamouring  for  soup-tickets- 
Our  inn,  the  head-quarters  of  the  road  engineer  and 
pay  clerks,  beset  by  a  crowd  of  beggars  for  work." 
In  another  place  "  the  survivors,"  he  says,  "  were 
like  walking  skeletons — the  men  gaunt  and  haggard, 
stamped  with  the  livid  mark  of  hunger  ;  the  children 
crying  with  pain  ;  the  women  in  some  of  the  cabins 
too  weak  to  stand.  When  there  before  I  had  seen 
cows  at  almost  every  cabin,  and  there  were  besides 
many  sheep  and  pigs  owned  in  the  village.  But  now^ 
the  sheep  were  all  gone — all  the  cows,  all  the 
poultry  killed — only  one  pig  left ;  the  very  dogs 
which  had  barked  at  me  before  had  disappeared — no 
potatoes  ;  no  oats." 

One  more  extract  more  piteous  even  than  the  rest  : 
"As  we  went  along  our  wonder  was  not  that  the 
people  died,  but  that  they  lived  ;  and  I  have  no 
doubt  whatever  that  in  any  other  country  the  mortality 
would  have  been  far  greater  ;  that  many  lives  have 
been  prolonged,  perhaps  saved,  by  the  long  appren- 
ticeship to  want  in  which  the  Irish  peasant  had  been 
trained,  and  by  that  lovely  touching  charity  which 
prompts  him  to  share  his  scanty  meal  with  his 
starving  neighbour." 

Of  course  all  this  time  there  was  no  lack  of 
preventative  measures.  Large  sums  had  been  voted 
from  the  Treasury;  stores  of  Indian  corn  introduced  ; 


EPFORTS   OF   THE   GOVERNMENT.  399 

great  relief  works  set  on  foot.  An  unfortunate 
fatality  seemed,  however,  to  clog  nearly  all  these 
efforts.  Either  they  proved  too  late  to  save  life, 
or  in  some  way  or  other  to  be  unsuitable  to 
the  exigencies  of  the  case.  Individual  charity,  too, 
came  out  upon  the  most  magnificent  scale.  All 
Europe  contributed,  and  English  gold  was  poured 
forth  without  stint  or  stay.  Still  the  famine  raged 
almost  unchecked.  The  relief  works  established  by 
the  Government,  with  the  best  intentions  possible, 
too  often  were  devoted  to  the  most  curiousl\-  useless, 
sometimes  ev^en  to  actually  harmful,  objects.  To 
this  day  "  Famine  roads  "  may  be  met  with  in  the 
middle  of  snipe  bogs,  or  skirting  precipices  where 
no  road  was  ever  wanted  or  could  possibly  be 
used.  By  the  time,  too,  they  were  in  full  working 
order  the  people  were,  in  many  cases,  too  enfeebled 
by  want  and  disease  to  work.  For  close  upon  the 
heels  of  the  famine  followed  an  epidemic  hardly  less 
fatal  than  itself.  In  the  course  of  the  two  years 
that  it  raged  over  two  hundred  thousand  people 
are  said  to  have  perished  from  this  cause  alone,  and 
three  times  the  number  to  have  been  attacked  and 
permanently  enfeebled  by  it. 

In  1849  a  Relief  Act  was  passed  which  established 
soup  kitchens  throughout  the  unions,  where  food 
was  to  be  had  gratis  by  all  who  required  it.  Long 
before  this  similar  kitchens  had  been  privately  set 
on  foot,  and  men  and  women  had  devoted  them- 
selves to  the  work  with  untiring  energy'  and  the 
most  absolute  self-devotedncss.  Of  these  self-ap- 
pointed and  unpaid  workers  a  large  number  shared 


400  THE   FAMINE. 

the  fate  of  those  whom  they  assisted.  Indeed,  it  is 
one  of  the  most  singular  features  of  the  time  that 
not  only  old,  or  feeble,  or  specially  sensitive  people 
died,  but  strong  men,  heads  of  houses — not  regarded 
as  by  any  means  specially  soft-hearted — raised,  too, 
by  circumstances  out  of  reach  of  actual  hunger,  died 
— just  as  O'Connell  had  died — of  sheer  distress  of 
mind,  and  the  effort  to  cope  with  what  was  beyond 
the  power  of  any  human  being  to  cope  with.  In  the 
single  county  of  Galway  the  records  of  the  times 
show — as  may  easily  be  verified — an  extraordinary 
number  of  deaths  of  this  type,  a  fact  which  alone 
goes  far  to  disprove  those  accusations  of  heartlessness 
and  indifference  which  have  in  some  instances  been 
too  lightly  flung. 

After  the  famine  followed  ruin — a  ruin  which  swept 
high  and  low  alike  into  its  net.  When  the  poor  rate 
rose  to  twenty  and  twenty-five  shillings  in  the  pound 
it  followed  that  the  distinction  between  rich  and 
poor  vanished,  and  there  were  plenty  of  instances 
of  men,  accounted  well  off,  who  had  subscribed 
liberally  to  others  at  the  beginning  of  the  famine, 
who  were  themselves  seeking  relief  before  the 
end.  The  result  was  a  state  of  things  which  has  left 
bitterer  traces  behind  it  than  even  the  famine  itself 
The  smaller  type  of  landowners,  who  for  the  most 
part  had  kindly  relations  with  their  tenants,  were 
swept  away  like  leaves  before  the  great  storm,  their 
properties  fell  to  their  creditors,  and  were  sold  by 
order  of  the  newly  established  Encumbered  Estates 
Courts.  No  proposing  purchaser  would  have  any- 
thing  to   say  to   estates   covered   with   a  crowd    of 


WHOLESALE   EMIGRATION.  4OI 

pauper  tenants,  and  the  result  was  a  wholesale 
clearance,  carried  out  usually  by  orders  given  by 
strangers  at  a  distance,  and  executed  too  often  with 
a  disregard  of  humanity  that  it  is  frightful  to  read 
or  to  think  of.  Most  of  the  people  thus  ejected  in 
the  end  emigrated,  and  that  emigration  was  under 
the  circumstances  their  best  hope  few  can  reasonably 
doubt.  Even  here,  however,  misfortune  pursued 
them.  Sanitary  inspection  of  emigrant  ships  was  at 
the  time  all  but  unheard  of,  and  statistics  show  that 
the  densely  crowded  condition  of  the  vessels  which 
took  them  away  produced  the  most  terrible  mortality 
amongst  the  already  enfeebled  people  who  crowded 
them,  a  full  fifth  of  the  steerage  passengers  in  many 
cases,  it  is  said,  dying  upon  the  voyage,  and  many 
more  immediately  after  landing.  The  result  of 
all  this  has  been  that  the  inevitable  horrors  of  the 
time  have  been  deepened  and  intensified  by  a  sense 
of  ill-usage,  which  has  left  a  terrible  legacy  behind 
—  one  which  may  prove  to  be  a  peril  to  genera- 
tions still  unborn.  Even  where  those  who  emigrated 
have  prospered  most,  and  where  they  or  their  sons 
are  now  rich  men,  they  cling  with  unhappy  per- 
sistency to  the  memory  of  that  wretched  past — a. 
memory  which  the  forty  years  which  have  intervened, 
far  from  softening,  seem,  in  many  cases,  to  have  only 
lashed  into  a  yet  more  passionate  bitterness. 

In  Ireland  itself  the  permanent  effects  of  the  disaster 
differed  of  course  in  different  places  and  with  different 
people,  but  in  one  respect  it  may  be  said  to  have 
been  the  same  everywhere.  Between  the  Ireland  of 
the  past  and  the  Ireland  of  the  present  the  Famine 


402  THE   FAMINE. 

lies  like  a  black  stream,  all  but  entirely  blotting  out 
and  effacing  the  past.  Whole  phases  of  life,  whole 
types  of  character,  whole  modes  of  existence  and 
ways  of  thought  passed  away  then  and  have  never 
been  renewed.  The  entire  fabric  of  the  country 
was  torn  to  pieces  and  has  never  reformed  itself  upon 
the  same  lines  again.  After  a  while  every- day 
life  began  again  of  course,  as  it  does  everywhere 
all  over  the  world,  and  in  some  respects  the  struggle 
for  existence  has  never  since  been  quite  so  severe 
or  so  prolonged.  The  lesson  of  those  two  terrible 
years  has  certainly  not  been  lost,  but  like  all  such 
lessons  it  has  left  deep  scars  which  can  never  be 
healed.  Men  and  women,  still  alive  who  remember 
the  famine,  look  back  across  it  as  we  all  look  back 
across  some  personal  grief,  some  catastrophe  which 
has  shattered  our  lives  and  made  havoc  of  every- 
thing we  cared  for.  We,  too,  go  on  again  after  a 
while  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  yet  we  know 
perfectly  well  all  the  while  that  matters  are  not  the 
least  as  they  were  before ;  that  on  the  contrary  they 
never  can  or  will  be. 


LVIII. 

THE    LATEST    DEVELOPMENT. 

The  story  of  the  last  forty  years  must  be  com- 
pressed into  a  nutshell.  The  famine  was  over  at 
last,  but  its  effects  remained.  Nearly  a  million  of 
people  had  emigrated,  yet  the  condition  of  life  for 
those  remaining  was  far  from  satisfactory.  The 
Encumbered  Estates  Act,  which  had  completed  the 
ruin  of  many  of  the  older  proprietors,  pressed,  in  some 
respects,  even  more  severely  upon  the  tenants,  a 
large  number  of  whom  found  themselves  confronted 
with  new  purchasers,  who,  having  invested  in  Irish 
land  merely  as  a  speculation,  had  little  other  interest 
in  it.  In  1850  an  attempt  at  a  union  of  North  and 
South  was  made,  and  a  Tenant  League  Conference 
assembled  in  Dublin.  Of  this  league  the  remnants  of 
the  "Young  Ireland"  party  formed  the  nucleus,  but 
were  supplemented  by  others  with  widely  different 
aims  and  intentions.  Of  these  others  the  two  Sadleirs, 
John  and  James,  Mr.  Edmund  O'Flaherty,  and  Mr. 
William  Keogh,  afterwards  Judge  Keogh,  were  the 
most  prominent.  These  with  their  adherents  con- 
stituted the  once  famous  "  Brass  Band "  which  for 
several  years  filled  Parliament  with  its  noisy  decla- 


404  THE   LATEST  DEVELOPMENT. 

mations,  and  which  posed  as  the  specially  appointed 
champion  of  Catholicism.  In  1853  several  of  its 
members  took  office  under  Lord  Aberdeen,  but  their 
course  was  not  a  long  one.  A  bank  kept  in  Ireland 
by  the  two  Sadleirs  broke,  ruining  an  enormous 
number  of  people,  and  on  investigation  was  found 
to  have  been  fraudulently  conducted  from  the  very 
beginning.  John  Sadleir  thereupon  killed  himself; 
his  brother  James  was  expelled  from  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  he  and  several  others  implicated  in 
the  swindle  fled  the  country  and  never  reappeared, 
and  so  the  "  Brass  Band  "  broke  up,  amid  the  well- 
deserved  contempt  of  men  of  every  shade  of  political 
opinion. 

After  this  succeeded  a  prolonged  lull.  Secret 
agitations,  however,  were  still  working  underground, 
and  as  early  as  1850  one  known  as  the  Phoenix 
organization  began  to  collect  recruits,  although  for 
a  long  time  its  proceedings  attracted  little  or  no 
attention. 

In  1859  several  of  its  members  were  arrested,  and 
it  seemed  then  to  die  down  and  disappear,  but  some 
years  later  it  sprang  up  again  with  a  new  name,  and 
the  years  1866  and  1867  were  signalized .  by  the 
Fenian  rising,  or  to  put  it  with  less  dignity,-  the 
Fenian  scare.  With  the  close  of  the  American 
War  a  steady  backward  stream  of  Americanized 
Irishmen  had  set  in,  and  a  belief  that  war  between 
England  and  America  was  rapidly  approaching 
had  become  an  article  of  fervent  faith  with  a  large 
majority  in  Ireland.  The  Fenian  plan  of  operation 
was  a  two-headed  one.     There  was  to  be  a  rising  in 


THE   FENIANS.  405 

Ireland,  and  there  was  to  be  a  raid  into  Canada 
across  the  American  frontier.  Little  formidable  as 
either  project  seems  now,  at  the  time  they  looked 
serious  enough,  and  had  the  strained  relations  then 
existing  between  England  and  America  turned  out 
differently,  no  one  can  say  but  what  they  might  have 
become  so.  The  Fenian  organization,  which  grew 
out  of  the  earlier  Phoenix  one,  was  managed  from 
centres,  a  man  called  Stephens  being  the  person 
who  came  most  prominently  before  the  world  in  the 
capacity  of  Head  centre.  In  1865  Stephens  was 
arrested  in  Dublin,  but  managed  to  escape  not  long 
afterwards  from  Richmond  prison  by  the  aid  of  two 
confederates  within  its  walls.  The  following  May, 
1866,  a  small  body  of  Fenians  crossed  the  Niagara 
river,  but  the  United  States  authorities  rigidly  en- 
forced the  neutrality  of  the  American  frontier,  and  so 
the  attempt  perished.  The  same  spring  a  rising 
broke  out  in  Ireland,  but  it  also  was  stamped  with 
failure  from  its  onset,  and  the  famous  snowstorm 
of  that  year  iinished  the  discomfiture  of  its  ad- 
herents. 

Two  other  Fenian  demonstrations,  not  to  mention 
an  abortive  project  to  seize  Chester  Castle,  were 
shortly  afterwards  made  in  England.  In  1867,  some 
Fenian  prisoners  were  rescued  in  Manchester,  while  on 
their  way  to  gaol,  and  in  the  attempt  to  burst  the 
lock  of  the  van  in  which  they  were  being  conveyed 
a  police  officer  named  Brett,  who  was  in  charge  of  it, 
was  accidentally  shot.  Five  men  were  found  guilty 
for  this  offence.  One  IMacquire  was  proved  to  have, 
been   arrested  by  mistake,  another  Conder   had  the 


406  THE   LATEST  DEVELOPMENT. 

sentence  commuted,  but  three — Allen,  Larkin,  and 
O'Brien — were  hung. 

Another  Fenian  exploit  of  a  somewhat  different 
character  followed  in  December,  1867,  when  an 
attempt  was  made  by  some  desperados  belonging 
to  the  party  to  blow  up  the  Clerkenwell  House  of 
Detention,  in  which  two  Fenian  prisoners  were  then 
confined.  Luckily  for  them,  as  it  turned  out,  they 
were  not  in  that  part  of  the  prison  at  the  time,  or 
the  result  of  their  would-be  liberators'  efforts  would 
have  simply  been  to  kill  them.  As  it  was,  twelve 
other  people  were  either  killed  on  the  spot  or  died 
from  its  effects,  and  over  a  hundred  were  more  or 
less  badly  wounded.  For  this  crime  six  persons  were 
put  upon  their  trial,  but  only  one  was  convicted  and 
actually  executed. 

The  next  Irish  event  of  any  moment  stands  upon 
a  curiously  different  platform,  though  there  were  not 
wanting  suggestions  that  the  two  had  an  indirect  con- 
nection as  cause  and  effect.  In  1868  the  Liberal  party 
came  into  power  after  the  General  Election  with  Mr. 
Gladstone  as  Prime  Minister,  and  the  session  of  1869 
saw  the  introduction  of  a  Bill  for  the  Disestablishment 
of  the  Irish  Church.  The  controversies  to  which  that 
measure  gave  rise  are  already  quite  out  of  date,  and 
there  is  no  need  therefore  to  revive  them.  Few 
measures  so  vehemently  opposed  have  produced  less 
startling  effects  in  the  end.  It  neither  achieved  those 
great  things  hoped  by  its  supporters,  nor  yet  brought 
about  the  dire  disasters  so  freely  threatened  by 
its  opponents.  To  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ireland 
the  grievance  of  an  alien  State  Church  had,  since  the 


DISESTABLISHMENT   OF   THE   IRISH   CHURCH.     407 

settlement  of  the  tithe  question,  lapsed  into  being 
little  more  than  a  sentimental  one,  so  that  practically 
the  measure  affected  them  little.  As  an  institution^ 
however,  the  position  of  the  Irish  State  Church 
was  undoubtedly  a  difficult  one  to  defend,  the  very 
same  arguments  which  tell  most  forcibly  for  the 
State  Church  of  England  telling  most  forcibly 
against  its  numerically  feeble  Irish  sister.  What- 
ever the  abstract  rights  or  wrongs  of  the  case  it  is 
pretty  clear  now  that  the  change  must  have  come 
sooner  or  later,  and  few  therefore  can  seriously  regret 
that  it  came  when  it  did.  The  struggle  was  pro- 
tracted through  the  entire  session,  but  in  the  end 
passed  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  and  received  the 
royal  assent  on  July  26,  1869. 

It  was  followed  early  the  following  year  by  the 
Irish  Land  Act,  which  was  introduced  into  the  House 
of  Commons  by  Mr.  Gladstone  on  February  15,  1870. 
This  Act  has  been  succinctly  described  as  one 
obliging  all  landlords  to  do  what  the  best  landlords 
did  spontaneously,  and  this  perhaps  may  be  accepted 
as  a  fairly  accurate  account  of  it.  Owing  to  the  fact 
of  land  being  practically  the  only  commodity  of 
value,  there  has  always  been  in  Ireland  a  tendency  to 
offer  far  more  for  it  than  could  reasonably  be  hoped 
to  be  got  in  the  form  of  return,  and  this  tendency  has 
led,  especially  in  the  poorest  districts  and  with  the 
smallest  holdings,  to  a  rent  being  offered  and  ac- 
cepted often  quite  out  of  proportion  to  the  actual 
value  of  the  land,  though  in  few  instances  do  the 
very  highest  rents  attainable  seem  even  in  these  cases 
to  have  been  exacted.     The  Act  now  proposed  was 


4o8  THE  LATEST  DEVELOPMENT. 

to  abolish  one  passed  in  i860  which  had  reduced  all 
tenant  and  landlord  transactions  in  Ireland  to  simple 
matters  of  free  contract,  and  to  interpose  the  authority 
of  the  State  between  the  two.  It  legalized  what  were 
known  as  the  "  Ulster  customs  ; "  awarded  compen- 
sations for  all  improvements  made  by  the  tenant  or 
his  predecessors,  and  in  case  of  eviction  for  any  cause 
except  non-payment  of  rent  a  further  compensation  was 
to  be  granted,  which  might  amount  to  a  sum  equal  to 
seven  years'  rent ;  it  also  endeavoured  to  a  partial 
extent  to  establish  peasant  proprietorship.  That  it 
was  a  conscientious  attempt  to  deal  with  a  very 
intricate  and  perplexing  problem  may  fairly  be  con- 
ceded, at  the  same  time  it  has  been  its  misfortune 
that  it  proved  satisfactory  to  neither  of  the  two  classes 
chiefly  concerned,  being  denounced  by  the  one  as  the 
beginning  of  spoliation,  by  the  other  as  a  mere  worth- 
less, and  utterly  contemptible  attempt  at  dealing  with 
the  necessities  of  the  case. 

A  third  measure — the  Irish  Education  Act — was 
proposed  the  following  session,  but  as  it  resulted  in 
failure,  was  popular  with  no  party,  and  failed  to  pass; 
it  need  not  be  entered  into  even  briefly.  1874  saw  a 
dissolution  of  Parliament  and  a  General  Election, 
which  resulted  in  the  defeat  of  the  Liberals,  and  the 
return  of  the  Conservatives  to  office.  Before  this,  a 
new  Irish  constitutional  party  pledged  to  the  principle 
of  Home  Government,  had  grown  up  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  at  first  under  the  leadership  of  Mr. 
Butt,  afterwards  with  new  aims  and  widely  different 
tactics  under  that  of  Mr.  Parnell.  In  1879  an 
agrarian  movement  was  set  on  foot  in  Ireland,  chiefly 


THE   LAND   LEAGUE.  409 

through  the  instrumentality  of  Mr.  Davitt,  which  has 
since  become  so  widely  known  as  the  Land  League. 
It  was  almost  immediately  joined  by  the  more  ex- 
treme members  of  the  Irish  Parliamentary  party. 
Meetings  were  held  in  all  directions,  and  an  amount 
of  popular  enthusiasm  aroused  which  the  more 
purely  political  question  had  never  succeeded  in 
awakening.  Subscriptions  poured  in  from  America. 
A  season  of  great  scarcity,  and  in  some  districts  of 
partial  famine,  had  produced  an  unusual  amount  of 
distress,  and  this  and  the  unsettled  state  of  the  Land 
Question  all  helped  to  foster  the  rising  excitement. 
The  country  grew  more  and  more  disturbed.  Several 
murders  and  a  number  of  agrarian  outrages  were 
committed,  and  the  necessity  of  strengthening  the 
hands  of  the  executive  began  to  be  felt  by  both  the 
chief  political  parties  alike. 

In  1880  the  Liberal  party  returned  to  power  after 
the  General  Election,  and  1881  witnessed  the  passage 
through  Parliament  of  two  important  Irish  measures. 
The  first  of  these  was  a  Protection  of  Life  and  Pro- 
perty Bill  brought  in  in  January  by  Mr.  Forster,  then 
Chief  Secretary  of  Ireland.  As  was  to  be  expected, 
this  was  vehemently  opposed  by  the  Nationalist  mem- 
bers, who  retarded  it  by  every  means  in  their  power, 
one  famous  sitting  of  the  House  on  this  occasion  lasting 
for  forty-two  hours,  from  five  o'clock  on  the  Monday 
afternoon  to  nine  o'clock  on  the  Wednesday  following, 
and  then  only  being  brought  to  an  end  by  the  authority 
of  the  Speaker.  By  March,  however,  the  Bill  passed, 
and  in  the  following  month,  April  7th,  a  new  Irish 
Land  Act  was  brought  forward  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  and 


410  THE   LATEST  DEVELOPMEisT. 

was    passed    after    much    opposition    the    following 
autumn. 

The  full  scope  and  purport  of  this  Act  it  is  far 
beyond  the  limits  of  these  few  remaining  pages  to  enter 
upon.  Although,  to  some  extent  an  outcome  of 
the  Act  of  1870,  it  cannot  in  strictness  be  called 
a  mere  development  or  completion  of  it,  being  in 
many  respects  based  upon  entirely  new  principles. 
The  most  salient  of  these  are  what  are  known  as 
the  "  three  Fs,"  namely — Fixity  of  Tenure,  Fair  Rent, 
to  be  decided  by  a  Land  Court,  and  Free  Sale. 
As  regards  the  last  two,  it  has  been  pointed  out 
with  some  force  that  the  one  practically  does 
away  with  the  other,  the  only  person  benefited 
being  the  immediate  occupier,  at  whose  departure 
that  fierce  competitive  desire  for  the  land  which  is 
the  real  root  of  the  whole  difficulty  being  allowed 
freer  play  than  ever.  With  regard  to  the  first,  its 
effect  may  be  briefly  stated  as  that  of  reducing  the 
owner  to  the  position  of  a  rent  charger  or  annuitant 
upon  what  had  before  been  his  own  estate,  thereby 
depriving  him — even  where  want  of  means  did  not 
effectually  do  so — of  all  desire  to  expend  capital  upon 
what  had  henceforth  ceased  to  be  his  property,  and 
over  the  management  of  which  he  had  almost  wholly 
lost  control.  That  this  is  a  change  of  a  very  large 
and  sweeping  character  it  is  needless  to  say.  Hence- 
forward ownership  of  land  in  Ireland  is  no  longer 
ownership  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  It  is  an 
ownership  of  two  persons  instead  of  one,  and  a  divided 
ownership,  even  where  two  people  work  together 
harmoniously,  is  as   most   of  us  are   aware,  a  very 


ARREST  OF  MR.   PARNELL.  411 

difficult  relationship  to  maintain,  and  is  apt  to  be 
followed  sooner  or  later  by  the  effacements  of  the 
rights  of  one  or  the  other.  How  these  diverging 
rights  are  finally  to  be  adjusted  is  at  this  moment 
the  problem  of  problems  in  Ireland,  and  still  im- 
peratively awaits  solution. 

In  October  of  the  same  year,  1881,  Mr.  Parnell, 
Mr.  Davitt,  and  other  principal  members  of  the  Land 
League,  were  arrested  by  order  of  the  Governm.ent, 
and  lodged  in  Kilmainhan  gaol,  an  event  announced 
the  same  evening  by  Mr.  Gladstone  at  the  Guildhall 
banquet.  The  following  May  the  Liberal  Govern- 
ment resolved  however,  rather  suddenly,  to  reverse 
their  previous  policy,  and  the  Irish  leaders  were  set 
at  liberty.  About  the  same  time  Lord  Cowper  and 
Mr.  Forster,  the  Lord-Lieutenant  and  Chief  Secretary, 
resigned,  and  were  replaced  by  Lord  Spencer  and 
Lord  Frederick  Cavendish,  who  arrived  in  Ireland 
avowedly  upon  a  mission  of  conciliation. 

The  day  of  their  arrival — May  6,  1882 — has  been 
made  only  too  memorable  to  the  whole  world  by  the 
appalling  tragedy  which  took  place  the  same  evening 
in  the  Phoenix  Park,  where  Lord  Frederick  and 
Mr.  Burke,  the  Under  Secretary,  while  walking 
together  in  the  clear  dusk,  were  murdered  by 
a  party  of  miscreants,  who  escaped  before  any  sus- 
picion of  what  had  occurred  had  been  aroused,  even 
in  the  minds  of  those  who  had  actually  witnessed 
the  struggle  from  a  distance.  For  many  months  no 
clue  to  the  perpetrators  of  the  deed  was  discoverable, 
and  it  seemed  to  be  only  too  likely  to  be  added  to 
the  long  list  of  crimes  for  which  no  retribution  has 


412  THE   LATEST  DEVELOPMENT. 

ever  been  exacted.  Happily  for  Irish  credit  this 
was  not  the  case,  and  six  months  later,  in  the  month 
of  January,  1883,  a  series  of  inquiries  carried  on 
in  Dublin  Castle  led  to  the  arrest  of  no  less  than 
seventeen  men,  all  of  whom  were  lodged  in  prison 
and  bail  for  them  refused.  Amongst  these  was 
a  man  of  somewhat  higher  social  standing  than 
the  rest,  a  tradesman,  and  member  of  the  Dublin 
Council,  the  notorious  James  Carey,  who  not  long 
afterwards  turned  Queen's  evidence,  and  it  was 
mainly  through  his  evidence,  supplemented  by  that 
of  two  others,  that  the  rest  of  the  gang  were  con- 
victed. At  the  trial  it  was  proved  that  the  murder 
of  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish  had  formed  no  part  of 
the  original  scheme,  and  had  merely  arisen  acci- 
dentally out  of  the  circumstance  of  his  having  joined 
Mr.  Burke,  who,  upon  the  resignation  of  Mr.  Forster, 
the  Chief  Secretary,  had  been  selected  by  the  In- 
vincibles  as  their  next  victim.  Conviction  was  with- 
out difficulty  obtained  against  all  the  prisoners,  and 
five  were  shortly  afterwards  hanged,  the  remainder 
receiving  sentence  of  penal  servitude,  either  for  life 
or  long  periods. 

Carey's  own  end  was  a  sufficiently  dramatic  one. 
He  was  kept  in  prison,  as  the  only  way  of  ensuring 
his  safety  until  means  could  be  found  to  get  him  out 
of  the  country,  and  was  finally  shipped  some  months 
later  to  the  Cape.  On  his  way  there  he  was  shot 
dead  by  a  man  called  O'Donnell,  who  appears  to 
have  gone  out  with  him  for  the  purpose.  His 
fate  could  certainly  awaken  no  pity  in  the  most 
merciful    breast.     By   his    own    confession    not    only 


THE   QUESTION   OF  EVICTION.  413 

had  he  to  a  great  degree  planned  the  murder  and 
helped  to  draw  the  others  into  it,  but  had  actually 
selected  the  very  weapon  by  which  it  was  accom- 
plished, so  that  of  all  the  miscreants  engaged  in  the 
perpetration  he  was  perhaps  the  deepest  dyed  and 
the  most  guilty. 

Since  then,  and  indeed  all  along,  the  struggle  in 
Ireland  itself  has  been  almost  wholly  an  agrarian  one. 
The  love  of  and  desire  for  the  land,  rather  than 
for  any  particular  political  development,  is  what 
there  dominates  the  situation.  A  heavy  fall  of 
prices  has  led  to  a  widespread  refusal  to  pay  rent, 
save  at  a  considerable  abatement  upon  the  already 
reduced  Government  valuations.  Where  this  has 
been  refused  a  deadlock  has  set  in,  rents  in 
many  cases  have  not  been  paid  at  all,  and  eviction 
has  in  consequence  been  resorted  to.  Eviction, 
whether  carried  out  in  West  Ireland  or  East  London, 
is  a  very  ugly  necessity,  and  one,  too,  that  is  in- 
delibly stamped  with  a  taint  of  inhumanity.  At 
the  last  extremity,  it  is,  however,  the  only  one 
open  to  any  owner,  gtta  owner,  let  his  political  sym- 
pathies or  proclivities  be  what  they  may,  so  that  it 
does  not  necessarily  argue  any  double  portion  of 
original  sin  even  on  the  part  of  that  well-laden  pack- 
horse  of  politics — the  Irish  landlord — to  say  that 
his  wits  have  not  so  far  been  equal  to  the  task  of 
dispensing  with  it. 

Within  the  last  two  years  only  one  question  has 
risen  to  the  surface  of  politics  which  gravely  affects 
the  destinies  of  Ireland,  but  that  one  is  of  so  vast 
and    all-important    a    character    that    it    cannot    be 


414  THE   LATEST   DEVELOPMENT, 

evaded.  The  question  I  mean,  of  course,  of  Home 
Rule.  Complicated  as  its  issues  are,  embittered  as 
the  controversy  it  has  awakened,  dark  still  as  are 
its  destinies,  its  history  as  a  piece  of  projected, 
and  so  far  unsuccessful,  legislation  has  at  least  the 
merit  of  being  short  and  easily  stated.  In  the  month 
of  December,  1885,  just  after  the  close  of  the  general 
election,  it  began  to  be  rumoured  as  forming  part  of 
the  coming  programme  of  the  Liberal  leader.  On 
April  8,  1886,  a  Bill  embodying  it  was  brought 
forward  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  Mr.  Gladstone  ; 
upon  June  7th,  it  was  rejected  upon  the  second 
reading  by  a  majority  of  thirty^  and  at  the  general 
election  which  followed  was  condemned  by  a  large 
majority  of  the  constituencies. 

And  afterwards }  What  follows  ?  What  is  its 
future  destined  to  be .''  Will  it  vanish  away,  will  it 
pass  into  new  phases,  or  will  some  form  of  it  even- 
tually receive  the  sanction  of  the  nation  .-*  Thes-e  are 
Sphinx  questions,  which  one  may  be  excused  from 
endeavouring  to  answer,  seeing  that  the  strongest 
and  most  far-reaching  heads  are  at  this  moment 
intent  upon  them — not,  so  far  as  can  be  seen,  with 
any  strikingly  successful  result.  The  Future  is  a  deep 
mine,  and  we  have  not  yet  struck  even  a  spade  into  it. 

In  every  controversy,  no  matter  how  fierce  the 
waves,  how  thick  the  air  with  contending  assertions, 
there  is  almost  always,  however,  some  fact,  or  some 
few  facts,  which  seem  to  rise  like  rocks  out  of  the 
turmoil,  and  obstinately  refuse  to  be  washed  or 
whittled  away.  The  chief  of  these,  in  this  case,  is 
the  geographical  position,  or  rather  juxtaposition,  of 


HOME   RULE.  415 

the  two  islands.  Set  before  a  stranger  to  the  whole 
Irish  problem — if  so  favoured  an  individual  exists 
upon  the  habitable  globe — a  map  of  the  British 
islands,  and  ask  him  whether  it  seems  to  him  inevit- 
able that  they  should  remain  for  ever  united,  and  we 
can  scarcely  doubt  that  his  reply  would  be  in  the 
affirmative.  This  being  so,  we  have  at  least  it  will 
be  said  one  fact,  one  sea- rock  high  above  the  reach 
of  waves  or  spray.  But  Irishmen  have  been  declared 
by  a  great  and  certainly  not  an  unfavourable  critic — 
Mr.  Matthew  Arnold — to  be  "  eternal  rebels  against 
the  despotism  of  fact."  If  this  is  so — and  who  upon 
the  Irish  side  of  the  channel  can  wholly  and  abso- 
lutely deny  the  assertion .'' — then  our  one  poor  standing- 
point  is  plucked  from  under  our  feet,  and  we  are  all 
abroad  upon  the  waves  again.  Will  Home  Rule  or 
would  Home  Rule,  it  has  been  asked,  recognize  this 
fact  as  one  of  the  immutable  ones,  or  would  it  sooner 
or  later  incline  to  think  that  with  a  little  determina- 
tion, a  little  manipulation,  the  so-called  fact  would 
politely  cease  to  be  a  fact  at  all  ?  It  is  difficult  to 
say,  and  until  an  answer  is  definitely  received  it  does 
not  perhaps  argue  any  specially  sloth-like  clinging  to 
the  known  in  preference  to  the  unknown  to  admit 
that  there  is  for  ordinary  minds  some  slight  craning 
at  the  fence,  some  not  altogether  unnatural  alarm  as 
to  the  ground  that  is  to  be  found  on  the  other  side 
of  it.  "  Well,  how  do  you  feel  about  Home  Rule 
now  that  it  seems  to  be  really  coming  ?  "  some  one 
inquired  last  spring,  of  an  humble  but  life-long 
Nationalist.  "  'Deed,  sir,  to  tell  the  truth,  I  feel  as  if 
I'd  been  calling  for  the  moon  all  me  life  and  was  told 


41 6  THE   LATEST  DEVELOPMENT. 

it  was  coming  down  this  evening  into  me  back  gar- 
den !  "  was  the  answer.  It  is  not  until  a  great  change 
is  actually  on  top  of  us,  till  the  gulf  yawns  big  and 
black  under  our  very  eyes,  that  we  fully  realize  what 
it  means  or  what  it  may  come  to  mean.  The  old  state 
of  things,  we  then  begin  to  say  to  ourselves,  was  really 
very  inconvenient,  very  trying  to  all  our  tempers  and 
patience,  but  at  least  we  know  the  worst  of  it.  Of 
the  untravelled  future  we  know  nothing.  It  fronts 
us,  with  hands  folded,  smiling  blankly.  It  may 
be  a  great  deal  better  than  we  expect,  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  may  be  worse,  and  in  ways,  too,  which 
as  yet  we  hardly  foresee.  Whatever  else  Home  Rule 
may,  would,  could,  or  should  be,  one  thing  friends 
and  foes  alike  may  agree  to  admit,  and  that  is 
that  it  will  mark  an  entirely  new  departure — a  de- 
parture so  new  that  no  illustration  drawn  from  the 
last  century,  or  from  any  other  historical  period,  is  of 
much  avail  in  enabling  us  to  picture  it  to  ourselves. 
It  will  be  no  resumption,  no  mere  continuation  of 
anything  that  has  gone  before,  but  a  perfectly  fresh 
beginning.     A  beginning,  it  may  be  asked,  of  what.'' 


LIX. 


CONCLUSION. 


"Concluded  not  completed,"  is  the  verdict  of 
Carlyle  upon  one  of  his  earlier  studies,  and  "  con- 
cluded not  completed,"  conscience  is  certainly  apt  to 
mutter  at  the  close  of  so  necessarily  inadequate  a 
summary  as  this.  Much  of  this  inadequacy,  it  may 
fairly  be  confessed,  is  individual,  yet  a  certain  amount 
is  also  inherent  in  the  very  nature  of  the  task  itself 
In  no  respect  does  this  inadequacy  press  with  a  more 
penitential  weight  than  in  the  case  of  those  heroes 
whose  names  spring  up  at  intervals  along  our  pages, 
but  which  are  hardly  named  before  the  grim  neces- 
sities of  the  case  force  us  onwards,  and  the  hero  and 
his  doings  are  left  behind, 

Irish  heroes,  for  one  reason  or  another,  have  come 
off,  it  must  be  owned,  but  poorly  before  the  bar  of 
history.  Either  their  deeds  having  been  told  by 
those  in  whose  eyes  they  found  a  meagre  kind- 
ness, or  else  by  others  who,  with  the  best  intentions 
possible,  have  so  inflated  the  hero's  bulk,  so  pared 
away  his  merely  human  frailties,  that  little  reality 
remains,  and  his  bare  name  is  as  much  as  even 
a   well-informed   reader    pretends    to    be    acquainted 


4l8  CONCLUSION. 

with.  Comparing  them  with  what  are  certainly  their 
nearest  parallels — the  heroes  and  semi-heroes  of  Scotch 
history — the  contrast  strikes  one  in  ah  instant,  yet 
there  is  no  reason  in  the  nature  of  things  that  this 
should  be.  Putting  aside  those  whose  names  have 
got  somewhat  obscured  by  the  mists  of  the  past,  and 
putting  aside  those  nearer  to  us  who  stand  upon  what 
is  still  regarded  as  debateable  ground,  there  are  no 
lack  of  Irish  names  which  should  be  as  familiar  to  the 
ear  as  those  of  any  Bruce  or  Douglas  of  them  all. 
The  names  of  Tyrone,  of  James  Fitzmaurice,  of 
Owen  Roe  O'Neill,  and  of  Sarsfield,  to  take  only  a 
few  and  almost  at  random,  are  all  those  of  gallant 
men,  struggling  against  dire  odds,  in  causes  which, 
whether  they  happen  to  fit  in  with  our  particular  sym- 
pathies or  not,  were  to  them  objects  of  the  purest,  most 
genuine  enthusiasm.  Yet  which  of  these,  with  the 
doubtful  exception  of  the  last,  can  be  said  to  have 
yet  received  anything  like  a  fair  meed  of  apprecia- 
tion ?  To  live  again  in  the  memory  of  those  who 
come  after  them  may  not  be — let  us  sincerely  hope 
that  it  is  not — essential  to  the  happiness  of  those  who 
are  gone,  but  it  is  at  least  a  tribute  which  the  living 
ought  to  be  called  upon  to  pay,  and  to  pay  moreover 
ungrudgingly  as  they  hope  to  have  it  paid  to  them 
in  their  turn. 

Glancing  with  this  thought  in  our  minds  along  that 
lengthened  chronicle  here  so  hastily  over-run,  many 
names  and  many  strangely-chequered  destinies  rise  up 
one  by  one  before  us  ;  come  as  it  were  to  judgment,  to 
where  we,  sitting  in  state  as  "  Prince  Posterity," 
survey  the   varied  field,  and  judge  them    as    in  our 


CONCLUSION. 


419 


wisdom  we  think  fit,  assigning  to  this  one  praise,  to 
that  one  blame,  to  another  a  judicious  admixture  of 
praise  and  blame  combined.  Not,  however,  it  is  to 
be  hoped,  forgetting  that  our  place  in  the  same 
panorama  waits  for  another  audience,  and  that  the 
turn  of  this  generation  has  still  to  come. 


AUTHORITIES. 


Adamnan,  "  Life  of  St.  Columba "  (trans.). 

Arnold  (Matthew),  "  On  the  Study  of  Celtic  Literature." 

Bagwell,  "  Ireland  under  the  Tudors." 

Barrington  (Sir  Jonah),  "  Personal  Recollections,"  "  Rise  and 

Fall  of  the  Irish  Nation." 
Brewer,  "  Introduction  to  the  Carew  Calendar  of  State  Papers." 
Bright  (Rt.  Hon.  J.),  "  Speeches." 
Burke  (Edmund),  "  Tracts  on  the  Popery  Laws,"  "  Speeches 

and  Letters." 

Carlyle,  "  Letters  and  Speeches  of  Cromwell." 

Carew,  "  Pacata  Hibernia." 

Cloncurry,  "  Life  and  Times  of  Lord  Cloncurr}'." 

Clogy,  "  Life  and  Times  of  Bishop  Bedell." 

Cornwallis  Correspondence. 

Croker  (Rt.  Hon.  W.),  "  Irish,  Past  and  Present." 

Davis  (Thomas),  "  Literary  and  Historical  Essays." 

Davies  (Sir  John),  "A  Discoverie  of   the   True  Causes  why 

Ireland  was  never  Subdued." 
Dennis,  "  Industrial  Ireland." 
Domenach  (Abbe),  "  Larerte  Erinn." 
Dymock  (John),  "A  Treatise  on  Ireland." 
Duffy  (Sir  Charles  Gavin),  "  Four  Years  of  Irish  History." 

Essex,  "  Lives  and  Letters  of  the  Devereux,  Earls  of." 


422  AUTHORITIES. 

Froude  (J.  A.),  "History  of  England,"  "The  English  in 
Ireland." 

Giraldus  Cambrensis,  "  Conquest  of  Ireland,"  Edited  by  J. 
Dimock,  Master  of  the  Rolls  Series,  1867  ;  "Topography 
of  Ireland,"  Edited  by  J.  Dimock,  Master  of  the  Rolls 
Series,  1867. 

Green,  "  History  of  the  English  People." 

Grattan,  "  Life  and  Speeches  of  Rt.  Hon.  Henry  Grattan." 

Halli-day,  "  Scandinavian  Kingdom  of  Dublin." 
Hennessy  (Sir  Pope),  "Sir  Walter  Raleigh  in  Ireland." 
Hardiman,  "  History  of  Galway." 
Howth  (Book  of),  from  O'Flaherty's  "  lar  Connaught." 

Joyce,  "  Celtic  Romances." 

Kildare  (Marquis  of),  "  The  Earls  of  Kildare.' 

Lodge,  "  Desiderata  Curiosa  Hibernica." 

Lecky,   "  History  of  England    in    the    Eighteenth    Century," 

and  "  Leaders  of  Public  Opinion  in  Ireland." 
Leland,  "  History  of  Ireland." 

Maine   (Sir    H.),  "  Early  History    of    Institutions,"   "  Village 

Communities,  East  and  West." 
Max  Miiller's  Lectures. 
M'Gee  (T.  Darcy),  "  History  of  Ireland." 
McGeoghegan,  "  History  of  Ireland." 
Mitchell  (John),  •'  History  of  Ireland." 
Montalembert,  "  Monks  of  the  West." 
Murphy  (Rev.  Denis),  "  Cromwell  in  Ireland." 
Madden,  "  History  of  Irish  Periodical  Literature." 
McCarthy  (Justin),  "  History  of  Our  Own  Times." 

O'Connor  (T.  P.),  "The  Parnell  Movement." 
O'Flaherty,  "  lar  Connaught." 

Petty  (Sir  W.),  "  Political  Anatomy  of  Ireland." 
Petrie  (Dr.),  "  Round  Towers  of  Ireland." 


AUTHORITIES.  423 

Prendergast,  "Tory  War  in  Ulster,"  '"The  Cromwellian  Settle- 
ments." 

Richey  (A.  G.),  "  Lectures  on  the  History  of  Ireland." 

Smith  (Goldwin),  "  Irish  History  and  Irish  Character." 
Spenser  (Edmund),  "View  of  the  State  of  Ireland." 
Stokes  (Miss),  "Early  Christian  Architecture  of  Ireland." 
Stokes  (Professor  George),  "  Ireland  and  tlie  Celtic  Church." 

Tone  (Wolfe),  "  Autobiography.'' 

Vere  de  (Aubrey).,  "  Queen  Meave  and  other  Legends  of  the 
Heroic  Age,"  and  "  Legends  of  St.  Patrick." 

Walpole,  "  Kingdom  of  Ireland." 
Webb  (Alfred),  "Compendium  of  Irish  Biography." 
Wilde  (Sir  W.),  "  Lough   Corrib,"  and  "  The  Boyne  and  the 
Blackwater." 

Young  (Arthur),  "  Tour  in  Ireland." 


INDEX. 


Abercromby,  Sir  Ralph,  359 

Act  of  Supremacy,  152 

Act  of  Uniformity,  278 

Adamnan,  43 

Adare,  188 

Affane,  battle  of,  183 

Aidan  (Saint)  and  Irish  monk,  45 

Alcansar,  battle  of,  184 

Allen,  an  Irish  priest,  184 

Allen,  hill  of,  14 

Allen,  John,  Archbishop  of  Dub- 
lin, 146 

Allen,  the  Fenian  prisoner,  406 

Andrews,  Dean  of  Limerick,  237 

Angareta,  mother  of  Giraldus,  78 

Angelsea,  settlement  of,  67 

Anglo-Norman  invasion,  76 

Annals  of  Lough  Ce,   109 

Anselm  (Saint),  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  81 

Arctic  hare,  the,  4 

Ard-Reagh,  or  Over-king,  91 

Ardscul,  battle  of,  108 

Arklow  Head,  93 

Armagh,  Book  of,  33 

Armagh,  cathedral  of,  burnt  by 
Thorgist,  55 

Armdu,  a  Viking,  68 

Arran,  isles  of,  38 

Art  IVIcMurrough,  or  Art  Kava- 
nagh,  119;  master  of  Leinster, 
119;  has  recourse  to  Black- 
rent,  123 ;  entertained  by 
Richard  II.,  120;  knighted, 
120  ;  thrown  into  prison,  120 ; 


released,  120 ;  he  hastens  to 
Meath,  121  ;  defeats  the  royal 
army,  121  ;  he  again  meets 
Richard  II.  in  battle,  121  ; 
victorious,  123 

Ascendency,  the  Protestant,  307 

Ashton,  Sir  Arthur,  a  royalist 
officer,  261 

Askeaton,  castle  of,  187 ;  de- 
stroyed, 188 

Association,  Loyal  National  Re- 
peal, 386 

Attainder,  Bill  of,  drawn  and 
passed,  287' 

Athenry,  battle  of,  1 10 ;  en- 
feebled state,  175 

Athlone,  fortress  of,  104,  292 

Athy,  bridge  of,  128 

Aughrim,  battle  of,  293 

Augustine  (Saint),  44 

D'Aguilar,  Don  Juan,  215 

D'Avaux,  Count,  envoy  to 
James  II.,  283 


B 


Baculum    Cristahitn,  or  Staff  of 

St.  Patrick,  158 
Baggotrath,  battle  of,  260 
Bagnall,  Sir  Henry,  198  ;  Tyrone 
marries  his  sister,  201 ;  becomes 
his  enemy,  201  ;  he  marches 
against  Tyrone,  204 ;  he  is  shot, 
205  ;  his  army  defeated,  205  ; 
fort  of  Blackwater  surrendered, 
205 


426 


INDEX. 


Ballinasloe,  town  of,  293 
Baltimore,  stronghold  of  pirates, 

127 
Baltinglass,  Lord,  189 
Bannockburn,  battle  of,   108  ;  its 

effects  on  Ireland,  108 
Bannow,  bay  of,  or  "FitzStephen's 

stride,"  83 
Barnabie  FitzPatrick,  157 
Barries  descendants  of  Nesta,  76 
Barri,  Robert  de,  83 
Barrington's  Bridge,  107 
Barrymore,  Lord, '141 
Beare  O'Sullivan,  215 
Bedell,  bishop  of  Kilmore,  245 
Beltane,  Celtic  festival  of  istMay, 

M 

Belgic,  colony  of,  6 
Bellinghani,  Sir  Edward,  162 
Belrath,  castle  of,  141 
Ben  Edar,  now  Howth,  17 
Benignus,    first    disciple    of    St. 

Patrick,  35 
Benturb,  battle  of,  255 
Bermingham,  Sir  John  de,  victor 

of  Athenry,  no,  in 
Beresford,  Chief  Commissioner  of 

Customs,  351 
Bernard,  Saint,  of  Clairvaux,  81 
Betas,  Celtic  houses  of  hospitahty, 

14 
Black-rent,  use  of,  119,  123,  129 
Blackwater  river,  183  ;   battle  of, 

203 
Blaney,  Mr.,  member  for  Mona- 

ghan,  243 
Book  of  Aicill,  Aryan  law,  25 
Book  of  Armagh,  33 
Book  of  Howth,  the,  140 
Borough,  Lord,  deputy,  203 
Boulter,  Archbishop  of  Armagh, 

304,  320 
Boyle,  primate,  280 
Boyne,  battle  of  the,  288 
Bramhall,  primate,  277 
"  Brass  Band,"  403 
Brehons,  judges  or  law  makers, 

19,  25 
Brian  Boru,  or  Bornma,  60,  61  ; 

he  defeats  the  Danes,  61  ;  seizes 


throne  of  Cashel,  63  ;  over-runs 
Leinster,  63  ;  subdues  Ossory, 
63  ;  attacks  Meath,  63  ;  burns 
the  stronghold  of  Tara,  63 ; 
becomes  Ard-Reagh  in  Mala- 
chy's  place,  63 ;  he  is  called 
Brian  of  the  Tribute,  64  ;  he 
becomes  master  of  Ireland,  64  ; 
his  victory  at  Clontarf,  66  ;  he 
marches  against  Brodar,  68,  69  ; 
is  killed,  69 ;  mourned  and 
buried,  69,  70. 
Bridget  (Saint),  47  ;  sacred  fire  of, 

47 

Brodar,  a  Viking,  66 ;  killed  Brian, 
67 

Brown,  Archbishop  of  Meath,  159; 
deprived,  161 

Bruce,  Edward,  in  Ireland,  107  ; 
battle  of  Bannockburn,  108  ;  its 
effects,  108 ;  Bruce  lands  at 
Carrickfergus,  108 ;  defeats 
Richard  de  Burgh,  108  ;  defeats 
Sir  Edmund  Butler  at  Ardscul, 
108 ;  victorious  at  Kells,  108 ; 
meets  his  brother,  108 ;  is 
crowned  king,  109  ;  devastates 
the  country,  109  ;  defeated  and 
killed  at  Dunkalk,  no 

Bruce,  King  Robert  of  Scotland, 
108 

Bun  en,  district  of  the,  in  North 
Clare,  269 

Burgh,  Sir  William  FitzAldelm  de, 
103 

Burgundy,  Duchess  of,  132,  136 

15urke,  Edmund,  330 

Burke,  Mr.  Thomas,  murder  of, 
411 

C 

Calvagh  O'Donnell,  167 

Camden,  Lord  (Lord-Lieutenant), 
359. 

Campion,  historian,  the,  125 

Carew,  Sir  George,  213,  215,  216^ 
226 

Carew,  Sir  Peter,  178 ;  his  atroci- 
ties, 178 

Carey,  James,  the  informer,  412 

Carhampton,  Lord,  358 


INDEX. 


427 


Carle  Canuteson,  67 

Carlow,  154 

Carneg,  rock  of,  84 

Carnot,  355 

Catholic  Confederacy,  249 

Catholic  Relief  Bill  carried,  38 1 

Cashel,  Synod  of,  92 

Castlehaven,  215 

Castlereagh,  Lord,  Chief  Secre- 
tary, 370 

Caulfield,  Lord,  Governor  of 
Charlemont,  243 

Cavan,  Lord,  365 

Cavendish,  Lord  Frederick, 
murdered,  411 

Cerd  or  Nuad  of  "the  Silver 
hand,"  9 

Charlemont,  Lord,  330 

Charles  L,  accession,  231  ;  he 
sends  Strafford  to  Ireland,  231, 
235,  238  ;  his  death,  279 

Chester  Castle,  attack  on,  pro- 
jected, 405 

Chesterfield,  'Lord,  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant, 344 

Claims,  Court  of,  275 

Clan  Nairn,  17 

Clann  Dichin,  a  malediction,  20 

Clanricarde,  Earl  of,  105 

Clarence,  Lionel,  Duke  of,  114 

Ch'ach,  plains  of,  14 

Clocthech,  round  towers  of,  56 

Clogher,  Bishop  of,  241 

Clonard,  town  of,  47 

Clonmacnois,  high  altar  at,  47 

Clonmei,  262 

Clontarf,  battle  of,  71,  74  ;  strand 
of,  66 

Clyn,  Franciscan  historian,  109 

Cole,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  story  of, 
163 

Cole,  Sir  William,  Governor  of 
Enniskillen,  243 

Coleraine,  243 

Colkilla,  hill  of,  14 

Colman,  Bishop,  46 

Columba  (Saint),  born,  43  ;  his 
character,  42,  43 ;  he  leaves 
Ireland,  43  ;  visits  Scotland, 
43  ;  and  lona,  44 


Connaught,  landowner's  case  of, 
230 

Connaught,  treaty  of,  103 

Connemara,  anciently  lar  Con- 
naught, 8 

Conciliation  Hall,  386 

Confederates,  Young   Irelanders, 

395 
Con  O'Neill  (Earl  ol  Tyrone)  154 
Cong,  plains  of,  7 
Conyers,  Clift'ord,  Sir,  Governor  of 

Connaught,  209 
Cooke,  Under-Secretary  of  State, 

351 

Coote,  Sir  Charles,  244,  246,  273 

Cork,  town  of,  119 

Cormac,  MacArt,  23 

Cormac  O'Conn,  King,  li 

Cornwallis,  Marquis,  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant, 365 

Corrib  Lough,  104 

Covvper,  Lord,  411 

"  Coyne  and  livery,"  183 

Croagh  Patrick,  mountain  of,  34 

Crofty,  hill  of,  247 

Crom  a  Boo,  war  cry  of  the  Fitz- 
geralds,  138 

Cromwell,  Henry,  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant, 76 

Cromwell  in  Ireland,  261  ;  he 
takes  Drogheda,  261 ;  Wex- 
ford,262  ;  Kilkenny, 262  ;  Clon- 
mei, 262 ;  his  army  sickens, 
263  ;  Ireland  under  his  rule, 
264 ;  the  struggle  continues, 
264 ;  Limerick  and  Galway 
yield  at  last,  264  ;  close  of  civil 
war,  265 ;  his  methods,  266  ; 
Catholic  evictions,  267  ;  his 
treatment  of  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill, 
Lord  Mayo,  and  Lord  Mus- 
kerry,  267  ;  his  death,  272 

Crint,  or  stringed  harp,  52 

Criiachan,  mountain  of,  35 

Curragh  of  Kildare,  14 

D 
Danaans,  tribe  of,  8 
Danes,  53 
Danes,  Dublin,  67 


428 


INDEX. 


Danes  of  Limerick,  58-61 

Dangen,  ancient  name  of  Phillips- 
town,  162 

Dashda,  or  Druid  chieftain,  53 

Davis,  John,  Sir,  95-117;  he  is 
elected  Speaker,  227  ;  quarrel 
which  followed,  227,-228 

Davis,  Thomas  (poet),  290 

Davitt,  Michael,  Mr.,  409 

Declaration  ot  Rights  by  Grattan, 
320 

Declaratory,  Act  of  George  I., 
322 

"Defenders,"  Association  of,  345 

Delvin,  Lord,  191 

Dermot  McMurrough,  King  of 
Leinster,  83 

Derry,  town  of,  171 

Desmond,  Earl  of,  taken  to  Lon- 
don, 176  ;  vacillates  about  re- 
belling, 185;  his  death,  192 

Desmond-Sugane  or  Straw,  Earl 
of,  200 

Dillon,  Mr.,  391 

Donald,  Chief  of  Ossory,  90 

Donegal,  chapels  in,  43 

Donore,  hill  of,  280 

Douchad,  son  of  O'Brien,  74 

Dowdal,  Archbishop  of  Armagh, 

159 

Downpatrick,  town  of,  99 
Drapier  Papers  by  Swift,  317 
Drogheda,  Parliament  of,  138 
Drogheda,  taken  by  Cromwell,  261 
Dublin  Castle,  240  ;  plot  to  seize 

it,  241  ;  frustr.ited,  242 
Dublin,  Philosophical  Association 

of,  311 
Dublin,  Society  of,  311 
Duffy,  Sir  Charles  Gavin,  390 
Dundalk,  battle  of,  1 10 
Dungannon,  Matthew,  Baron  of, 

165 
Dunsany,  Lord,  247 

E 

Edgecombe,  Sir  Edward,  135 
Edward,  I.,  107 

Edward  IL,  108 ;  Battle  of  Ban- 
nockburn,  108 


Edward    III.,   113;  he  summons 
landowners,      1 14  ;       appoints 
Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence,  vice- 
roy, 1 14;  Statute  of  Kilkenny  is 
passed,  115 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  165  ;  entertains 
Shane   O'Neill   at  Court,    68 ; 
account  of  his  visit,  168;  Ireland 
during  her  reign,  171-172 
Emmett,  Robert,  376 
Emmett,  Thomas  Addis,  354 
Encumbered  Estate  Court,  400 
Enniskillen,  town  of,  247 
Eochaidh  king,  tale  of,  35 
Essex,  Robert  Devereux,  Earl  of, 
206  ;    take    the    command    in 
Ireland,  208  ;  proceeds  against 
Tyrone-,  208;  his  disasters,  208; 
takes  Cahir  Castle,  208  ;  meets 
Lugane    Earl,  208  ;   meets  Ty- 
rone at  Lagan,  209  ;   returns  to 
England,  210 
Eva,  daughter  of  Dermot,  86 
Everard,  Sir  John,  227,  228 


Falkland,  Lord,  231 

Famine,  the  first  symptoms  of, 
396  ;  great  distress,  397  ;  I\Ir. 
Forster  reports,  397 ;  Reliei  Act 
passed,  399  ;  the  ruin  which 
followed  it,  400 ;  after  effects, 

403 

Fedlim  O'Connor,  king  of  Con- 
naught,  108 

Fenian  prisoners,  rescue  of,  at 
Manchester,  405 

Fenian  rising,  401 

Fenni  or  Fenians,  il 

Fercal,  tribes  of,  161 

Ferns,  town  of,  83 

Finn,  McCumal,  14 

Finn  or  Fingal,  father  of  Ossian, 
II 

Finnvarragh,  king  of  the  fairies, 
21 

Firbolgs,  race  of,  6 

Fitton,  Sir  Edward,  176 

Fitzgerald,  Lord  Edward,  354-359 

Fitzgerald,  Maurice,  83 


INDEX, 


429 


Fitzgerald,      Mr.,     member     for 

Clare,  380 
Fitzgerald,    Raymond   (le  Gros), 

.85 

Fitzgerald,  Sir  James,  191 

Fitzgerald,  Sir  John,  191 

FitzHenry,  Robert  and  Meiler, 
sons  of  Nesta,  76 

Fitzmaurice,  Lady,  188 

Fitzmaurice  of  Lexnaw,  ill 

Fitzmaurice,  Sir  James,  178 ; 
breaks  into  rebellion,  178;  re- 
lations between  him  and  Sir 
James  Perrot,  179;  burns  Kil- 
mallock  179;  marches  into 
Ulster,  179 ;  burns  Athlone, 
179;  joins  the  Mac-an-Earlas, 
180;  lays  Galway  waste,  180; 
crosses  the  Shannon,  180  ;  sur- 
renders and  takes  the  required 
oaths  at  Kilmallock,  180  ;  sails 
to  France,  180 ;  returns,  184; 
his  death,  187 

FitzSimons,  Walter,  Archbishop 
of  Dublin,  137 

FitzStephen,  Robert,  83 

FitzUrse  of  Louth,  1 1 1 

Fitzwilliam,  Lord,  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant, 349-350 

Fitzwilliam,  Sir  William,  Lord- 
deputy,  199 

Flood,  Rt.  Hon.  Henry,  323 

Foltbar  and  Feradach,  Legends, 
16 

Formorians,  race  of,  5 

Forster,  Mr.  W.  E.,  397 

Forty-shilling  Freeholders,  Bill  of, 
349 

"  Four  Masters,"  the  annals  of 
the,  9 

Foyle,  Lough,  165 

Freema7i^s  Journal,  322 

Fuidhar,  or  "  broken  man,"  28 


Gall  (Saint),  36 

Galway,  bay  and  town  of,  104 

Galway,  Jury  of,  247 

George,  Duke  of  Clarence,  129 


Gerald  de  Barri,  Gerald  of  Wales, 
or  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  78 ; 
grandson  of  Nesta,  78  ;  priest 
and  chronicler,  78 ;  his  cha- 
racter as  a  writer,  78 

Gerald,  8th  Earl  of  Kildare,  son 
of  Geroit  Mor,  130 

Gerald  of  Windsor,  husband  to 
Nesta,  76 

Geraldines,  loi ;  Giraldus'  opinion 
of  them,  loi  ;  ancestors  of  Earls 
Kildare  and  Desmond,  102 ; 
important  position,  102 ;  their 
keep  at  Maynooth,  102  ;  power 
in  Ireland,  102 ;  Geroit  Mor, 
or  Gerald  the  Great,  7th  Earl 
of  Kildare,  130 

Gilbert,  Sir  Humphry,  179 

Gilla  Dacker  and  his  horse, 
legend  of,  14 

Ginkel,  Dutch  general  of  Wil- 
liam HI.,  291 

Gladstone,  Mr.  W.  E.,  406  ;  dis- 
established the  Irish  Church, 
406 ;  introduced  Irish  Land  Act 
of  1870,  407;  of  1881,  409; 
imprisoned  members  of  Land 
League,  411 ;  proposed  measure 
of  Home  Rule  of  1886,  414 

Glenmama  near  Dunlaven,  68 

Godred,  King  of  Man,  87 

Gormanstown,  Lord,  249 

Granard,  Lord  Justice,  280 

Grattan,  Henry,  328  ;  his  loyalty 
and  patriotism,  328  ;  he  enters 
Parliament,  330;  his  eloquence, 
330 ;  Declaration  of  Rights, 
330 ;  retires  into  private  life, 
332;  protests  against  the  Union, 
332  ;  member  of  English  Par- 
liament, 332 ;  his  death  and 
burial,  333 

"  Great  Darcy  of  Flatten,"  132 

Gregory,  Pope,  44 

Grey,  de  Wilton,  Lord-deputy, 
189 

Grey,  Leonard,  Lord,  Deputy, 
151.  152 

Griffiths,  Sir  Richard,  Irish  geo- 
logist, 312 


430 


INDEX. 


H 

Habeas  Corpus  Act,  351 
Hadrian  IV.,  Pope,  81 
Hamilton,  Sir  Richard,  282 
Harcourt,  Lord,  325 
Hardi,  French  General,  365 
Harvey,  Bagenal,  United  Irishman 

and  general  of  the  rebels,  363 
Hasculph,  Danish   Governor,  86- 

87 
Hatton,     Sir    Christopher,    "an 

Undertaker,"  194 
Heber    and    Heremon,    sons    of 

Milesius,  10 
Hoadly,  Archbishop  of  Armagh, 

320 
Hoche,  General,  355 
Hoche,  vessel  called  the,  365 
Home  Rule,  the  question  of,  44 
Howth,  Earl  of,  134,  136 
Humbert,  French  general,  364 
Hy-Nial,  or  royal  house  of  O'Neil, 

42,  52 


lar  Connaught,  mountains  of,  104 
Ireland,  Primeval,  i  ;  its  early 
vicissitudes,  3  ;  South  European 
plants  in,  5  ;  early  history  of, 
5-1 1 ;  its  legends,  13-21 ;  Celtic 
Ireland,  23  ;  early  laws  of,  26- 
29  ;  St.  Patrick's  visit  to,  32  ; 
the  Northern  scourge  of,  50 ; 
invasion  by  Anglo-Normans, 
76  ;  King  John  in,  98-100 ; 
invasion  of,  by  Edward  Bruce, 
107;  Richard  II.  visits  to,  119; 
attempt  to  force  Protestantism 
upon,  158-160 ;  Molyneux's, 
"  The  case  of,"  &c.,  313 ; 
Union  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  367-376 
Ireland,  the  future  of,  413 
"  Ireland,    Young,"    party,    390- 

395 
Irish  Catholic  Association,  407 
Irish  Celts,  25 
Irish  Church,  disestablishment  of, 

409 
Irish  Education  Act,  408 


Irish  elk,  4 

Irish  export  of  woollen  goods  for- 
bidden, 309 
Irish  famine,  396-403 
Irish  hare,  4 
Irish  heroes,  418 
Irish  Land  Act,  407 
Irish  volunteers,  336-340 
Inchiquin,  Lord,  256 
lona,  44 


James  II.  recalls  Lord  Ormond, 
280 ;  restores  Catholics  to  office, 
280  ;  his  treatment  of  Protes- 
tants, 281-282  ;  his  flight  to 
France,  282  ;  arrives  in  Ireland, 
283  ;  his  reception,  284  ;  be- 
sieges Londonderry,  285  ;  goes 
to  Dublin,  286  ;  is  defeated  at 
the  battle  of  the  Boyne,  288  ; 
his  flight,  289 

John,  the  Mad  Berserker-warrior, 

Jones,  Michael,  Colonel,  259 
Jones,  Paul,  pirate,  326 
Joyce's,  Mr.,  "  Celtic  Romances," 
13 

K 

Kelts,  battle  of,  99 

Keogh,  Judge,  403 

Kerry,  defence  of,  215 

Kerry,  plants  and  animals  in,  5 

Kildare,  Dean  of,  149 

Kildare,  house  of,  102  ;  earls  of, 
130,  134,  150;  "Silken 
Thomas,"     147  ;     vice-deputy, 

147  ;  renounces  allegiance  to 
England,    147  ;    takes    Dublin, 

148  ;  burns  Trim  and  Dunboyne, 
149;  is  defeated,  150;  im- 
prisoned and  hanged,  150 

Kilkea,  castle  of,  144 
Kilkenny,  castle  of,  105 
Kilkenny,  statutes  of,  1 15 
Killala,  Bishop  of,  365 
Kilmallock   burnt,    179  :     church 

of,  179 
Kimbaoth,  prince  of  Milesia,  lo 


INDEX. 


431 


King's  Count)',  52 
Kinsale,  harbour  of,  215 
Knights  of  G1>ti,  102  ;  of  Kerry, 

102 
Knockma,  a  hill  of,  8 
Knocktow,  battle  of,   144 ;  cause 

of,  106 


Lacy,  Hugo  de,  viceroy  of  Henry 
II.,  92 

Lagan,  ford  of,  209 

Lalor,  James,  393 

Lambay,  stand  of,  55 

Lambert,  Sininel,  331  ;  received 
in  Dublin  and  crowned,  134; 
defeated  at  Stoke,  135  ;  taken 
prisoner  and  appointed  turn- 
spit, 135 

Land  League,  the,  409 

Land  Lepers,  53,  59 

Lanfranc,  Archl)ishop  of  Canter- 
bury, 81 

Langan,  Comte  de,  288 

Laoghaire,  King  of  Meath,  34 

Larkin,  Fenian  hanged,  406 

Lecky's,  Mr.,  "History  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century,"  300 

Lee,  Captain,  199 

Leix,  town  of,  161 

Leiand  the  historian,  10 

Liffy  river,  87 

Lilibullero,  anti-Catholic  song, 
283 

Limerick,  articles  of,  295 

Limerick,  first  siege  of,  291 

Limerick,  treaty  of,  295 

Limerick,  wood  and  town  of, 
117 

Lindsfame,  peninsula  of,  45 

Londonderry,  siege  of,  285 

Lovell,  Lord,  135 

Lucas,  Charles,  323 

Luinagh  Tyrlough,  195 

Lundy,  governor  of  Londonderry, 
285 

M 

Mac-an-Earlas,  sons  of  Clanri- 
carde,  191 


Macarthy,  Colonel,  288 

McCarthy,  Dermot,  90 

Maccumactheneus,  St.  Patrick's 
chronicler,  34 

Magan,  betrayer  of  Lord  Edward 
Fitzgerald,   361 

Maguire,  Lord,  241 

Mahon,  King  of  Munster,  61 

Malachy  or  Melachin,Ard-Reagh, 
5.2 

Maiby,  Sir  Nicolas,  governor  of 
Connaught,  187 

Mananan  MacLir,  Legend  of 
Gilla  Backer,  17 

Marshall,  William,  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke, 103 

Maryborough  anciently  Campa,  162 

Mary,  Queen  of  England,  163 ; 
her  death,  164 

Maynooth,  castle  of,  102 

Mayo,  Lord,  267 

Mayo  mountains,  8 

Maxwell,  Colonel,  362 

McGeoghan,  Abbe,  historian,  i 

McGillapatrick,  Lord  of  Upper 
Ossoy,  168 

McHugh,  191 

McMahon,  Hugh,  chief  of  Mona- 
ghan,  192 

McMurrough,  Dermot,  King  of 
Leinster,  83,  241 

McMurrough,  son  of  Dermot,  83 

McToole,  Sir  Owen,  197 

Mc^YiIliam,  Burke  of  Galway,  154 

McWilliam '  Fighter,  and  Mc- 
William  Oughter,  the  Nether 
and  Further  Burkes,  III 

McWilliam  of  Clanricarde,  142 

Meagher,  391 

Meath,  plains  of,  8 

Mila  de  Cogan,  Norman  governor 
of  Dublin,  87 

Milcho  chieftain,  3 

Milesians  or  Scoti,  9,  lo 

Mitchell,  John,  391 

Molyneux,  Thomas,  Dr.,  311 

Molyneux,  William,  the  "In- 
genious Molyneux,"  311 

Montalembert,  M.  de,  40 

Montmorency,  Henry  de,  85 


43^ 


INDEX. 


Mortimer,  Roger,  viceroy,  no 

Mountgarrett,  Lord,  249 

Mountjoy,  Charles  Blount,  21 1  ; 
his  character,  211;  establishes 
military  stations,  213  ;  de- 
feats by  starvation,  213;  defeats 
Tyrone  and  the  Spanish  fleet, 
216 

Moytura,  prehistoric  battle  of  the 
southern,  7 

Muckern,  or  Mulkearn  noi,  187 

Mullingar,  town  of,  292 

Munroe,  General,  255 

Murhertach,  house  of,  74 

Murphy,  Father  John,  362 

Murphy,  Father  Michael,  304 

N 

Nation,  The,  newspaper,  390 
Neil  Grey,  167 

Newtown  Butler,  battle  of,  288 
Norris,  General  Sir  Henry,  206 
Norris,  Sir  Thomas,  194 
Norsmen,  or  Northmen,  or  Danes, 

7, 53-56 
Northern  Star,  newspaper,  358 
Nuad,    King   of    the     Tuatha-da- 

Danaans,  7-9 

O 

"  Oakboys,"  Society  of  the,  345 

O'Brian,  Prince  of  Thomond,  90 

O'Brien,  race  of,  60 

O'Brien,  Smith,  391 

O'Brien,  the  Fenian,  406 

O'Byrnes,  128 

O' Carroll  of  Argial,  91 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  makes  his  first 
speech,  379  ;  his  energy,  379  ; 
sets  on  foot  the  Irish  Catholic 
Association,  379  ;  carries  Catho- 
lic rent,  38c ;  contests  the 
county  of  Clare,  381;  his 
character,  382;  his  efTorts  to 
procure  repeal,  385 ;  his  en- 
mity to  secret  societies,  385 ; 
founds  the  Loyal  National 
Repeal  Association,    386 ;    his 


prosecution,  387 ;   found  guilty 

and  imprisoned,  387  ;    his   last 

appearance  and  death,  389 
O'Connell,  John,  391 
O'Connor,     Roderick,    the    Ard- 

Reagh,  75,  84-91 
O'Connors  of  Connaught,  74 
Octennial  Bill,  the,  325 
O'Curry,  53 

O'Dogherty,  Sir  John,  198 
O'Donnel,  Calvagh,  167 
O'Donnel,  of  Tyrconnel,  167 
O'Donnell,  Hugh,  or   Red   Hugh, 

200. 
O'Donnell,  murder  of  Carey,  412 
O'Donnell,  Rory,  221 
O'Dcnovans,  63 
O  Driscoll's  piratical  clan  of  West 

Cork,  27 
O'Dynor,   Dermot,  or  Dcrmot  oi 

the  Bright  Face,  17 
O'Flaherty,  Edmund,  403 
Oilen-an-Oir,  or  Gold  Island,  185 
Ollamhs     or      Sennachies,     head 

bards,  19 
O'Lochlin  of  House    of  O'Neill, 

74 

O' Moore,  Rory  or  Roger,  241 

O'Neill,  Owen,  248 

O'Neill,  Shane,  called  the  Proud, 
165;  his  character,  166;  his 
eloquence,   habits,  and   morals, 

166  ;  his  encounter  with  Sussex, 

167  ;  his  visit  to  the  r2nglish 
Court,  168 ;  receives  title  of 
Captain  of  Tyrone,  169 ;  re- 
turns to  Ireland,  169  ;  Sussex 
attempt  to  poison  him,  169; 
his  descent  on  the  Scots,  170, 
and  on  Connaught,  170;  his 
last   disaster  and    death,     172, 

173 

O'Neill,  Sir  Phelim,  241 
O'Neills,  or  Hy-Nials,  60-74 
Orange  Lodges,  institution  of,  345 
O'Reilly  of  Brefny,  167 
O'Rorke,  chieftain  of  Connaught, 

91 
O'Rorke  of  Brefny,  chieftain   of 
Leinster,  91 


INDEX. 


433 


Ormond,  house  of,  105-128 

Ossian,  poet  and  bard,  11-35 

Ossor}%  clan  of,  84 

Oswald,  King  of  Northumbria, 
44 

Oswin,   King  of  Northumbria,  46 

O'Toole,  Garrot,  191 

O'Toole,  St.  Lawrence,  Arch- 
bishop of  Dublin,  86 

Oulart,  hill  of,  362 

Owel,  Lough,  near  Mullingar, 
55 


Paladius,  missionary,  33 

Parnell,  Mr.,  411 

Parnell,  Sir  John,  371 

Parsons,  Sir  William,  242 

Patrick  (Saint),  his  birth,  33  ; 
lands  in  Ireland,  33  ;  visits 
to  Meath  and  to  Connaught, 
Antrim,  and  Armagh,  34 ; 
legends  of,  by  Mr.  Aubrey  de 
Vere,  35 

"  Peep  of  Day  Boys,"  Society  of, 

345 
Pelham,  Sir  William,  Lord-deputy, 

188 
Penal  Code,  the,  300 
Perkin  W'arbeck,  136,  137 
Parrot,  Sir  John,  176-179 
Peter's  Pence,  collection  of,  79 
Petrie,  George,  LL.D.,  7 
Petty,  Sir  William,  his  survey  of 

Ireland,  271 
Philip  II.,  King  of  Spain,  183 
Phoenix  organization,  404 
Phoenix  Park  tragedy,  411 
Picts,  53 

Pierce,  Captain,  173 
Plunkett,     Dr.,     Archbishop     of 

Dublin,  279 
Portland,  Duke  of,  350 
Poynings'  Act,  138 
Poynings'  Act  repealed,  287 
Poynings,  Sir  Edward,  148 
Preston,  Colonel,  249 
Protection  of  Life  and   Property 

Bill,  409 


Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  190- 191 

Rents,  Black,  17,  123 

Rents,  Fair  Rent  and  Free  Sale, 
410 

Rents,  Rack,  28 

Rents,  Stipulated,  28 

Ribbon  Association,  385 

Richard  11.  lands  at  Waterford, 
119;  his  meeting  with  Art 
McMurrough,  119  ;  entertains 
the  chiefs,  1 20 ;  receives  their 
oaths  of  allegiance,  120  ;  returns 
to  Ireland,  122;  encounters  Art 
McMurrough,  122  ;  leaves  Ire- 
land, 123 

Rupert,  Prince,  259 ;  his  arrival 
at  Kinsale,  259 


S 

Sadleirs,  John  and  James,  403 
Sanim  Celtic  Festival  (November 

1st),  14 
Sarsfield,  Patrick,  280 
Saunders,  Pope's  Legate,  184 
Schomberg,  Duke  of,  288 
Schwartz,  Martin,  Dutch  General, 

Scoti,  tribes  of  the,  9 
Scullobogue,  barn  of,  363 
Sebastian,  King  of  Portugal,  killed 

at  the  battle  of  Alcansar,  184 
Senchus  Mor,  ancient  law-book, 

25,  28 
Shannon,  Lord,  322 
Shannon,  river,  91 
Shiel,  Richard  Lalor,  379 
Sidney,     Henry,     Sir,     174;    be- 
comes   Lord-deputy,    174;    ap- 
points  presidents    in    the    pro- 
vinces,    176  ;    his    scheme    for 
reducing    expenses,     177 ;     his 
visits    to     Munster    and    Con- 
naught,  179 
.Sigurd,  Earl  of  Orkney,  66 
Silvermine  hills  of  Tipperary,  291 
Simon,  priest  and  tutor  to  Lam- 
bert Simnel,  135 


434 


INDEX. 


Sitric,  a  Viking,  67 
Skeffington,  Sir  William,  148 
Slemish  mountains,  33 
Sligo,.  town  of,  254 
Smerwick,  town  of,  185 
vSomerset,   Edward    Earl  of  Gla- 
morgan, 254 
South  European  Plants  in  Ireland, 

5 
Southern  Moytura,  7 
Spanish  Armada,  197 
Spenser,  Edmund,  poet,  190 
Stanihurst,  historian,  the,  1 31 
Steelboys,  Society  of,  345 
St.  John,  Sir  Oliver,  deputy,  231 
St.  Leger,  SirWareham,  "Under- 
taker," 194 
St.  Ruth,  General,  292 
Stephen,  Head  Fenian  centre,  405 
Stokes,  battle  of,  135 
Stokes,  Miss  Margaret,  312 
Stone,    Archbishop    of   Armagh, 

320 
Strafford,  Wentworth,  in  Ireland, 
232 ;  orders  subsidy  of;^ioo,oco, 

234  ;  he  overawes  the  juries, 
234 ;  his  character,  235  ;  his 
suppression  of  the  woollen  trade, 

235  ;  founds  the  linen  trade,  235  ; 
clears  the  sea  of  pirates,  235  ; 
sets  a  Court  of  High  Commission 
to  work,  237  ;  his  treatment  of 
Archbishop  Ussher,  237  ;  his 
account  of  his  dealings  with 
Convocation,  237  ;  his  return  to 
England,  239  ;  tried  for  treason, 
condemned,  and  executed,  239  ; 
effect  of  his  death  in  Ireland, 

239 

Strangford  Lough,  33 

Strongbow,  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
82  ;  his  marringe  with  Eva,  86  ; 
takes  Waterford,  86;  is  besieged 
in  Dubhn,  87  ;  flees  to  Water- 
ford,  88 ;  thence  to  England,  88 ; 
meets  Henry,  88 ;  and  returns 
to  Ireland,  89 

Stukeley,  Thomas,  Sir,  170,  184 

Sulcost,  battle  of,  61 

Surrey,  Earl  of,  deputy,  145 


Swift,  Jonathan,  Dean  of  St. 
Patrick's,  315;  his  character, 
315;  his  Drapier  Papers,  317; 
his  attack  on  Wood's  patent, 
315  ;  his  popularity,  319 

Swords  in  Meath,  247 

T 

Talbot,  Richard,  Earl  of  Tyrcon- 

nel,  208 
Tanist  laws  of  succession,  27 
Tara  in  Meath,  63  ;  battle  of,  63 
Tenant  League  Confederation,  403 
Tenure,  Fixity  of,  410 
Thomond,  Lady,  303 
Thomond,  Lord,  247 
Tower,    the    "Tower    Earl"   of 

Desmond,  192 
Townshend,  Lord,  325 
Towton,  battle  of,  129 
Tuam,  Arcnbishop  of,  254 
Tuatha-da-Danaans,  race  of,  7 
Turgesius  or  Thorgist,  55 
Turlough,  grandson  of  Brian,  82 
Tyrconnel,  Lady,  289 
Tyrconnel,  Richard,  Earl  of,  280 
Tyrconnel,  Rory  O'Donnell,  Earl 

of,  221 
Tyrone,    Hugh  O'Neill,  Earl  of, 

199  ;  receives  his  title  from 
Elizabeth,  199  ;  contrasted  with 
Shane,  199;  his  religious  views, 

200  ;  arbitrary  arrest  of  his 
brother-in-law,  200;  marries 
Bagnall's  sister,  201  ;  prepares 
for  rebellion,  202  ;  assumes  the 
title  of  the  O'Neill,  202;  is 
victorious  over  Bagnall,  205  ; 
meets  Essex  at  Lagan,  209 ; 
struggle  with  Mountjoy,  214; 
he  hurries  south  to  meet  the 
Spaniards,  215  ;  encounters 
Mountjoy  and  is  defeated,  216  ; 
reported  plot  against  England, 
220 ;  flies  the  country,  221  ;  dies 
in  exile,  222 

U 
Union,  Pitt's  plan  of,  268 
1   Union,  the,  367 


INDEX. 


43j 


United  hi'shmeti  newspaper,  394 
United  Irishmen,  the  Society  of, 

386 
Ussher,  Archbishop   of  Armagh, 

163  ;  treatment  of  by  Strafford, 

237 

V 

Vere,  Aubrey  de,  Mr.,  Legends  of 

St.  Patrick,  35 
Vinegar  Hill,  363 
Vohmteers,  Irish,  the,  334-340 

W 

Ware  Papers,  163 

Waterford,  town  of,  262  ;  defence 

of,  86  ;  Danes  of,  85  ;  Richard 

II.  lands  at,  122 
Wexford,  town  of,  83  ;  castle  of, 

87  ;  siege  by  Cromwell,  262 
Whitljy,  Synod  of,  46 
Whiteboys,  outrages  of,  342-344 
Wicklow,  landing  of  St.   Patrick 

in,  33 
William   of    Orange   in    Ireland, 


288  ;  he  lands  at  Carrickfergus, 
288 ;  meets  James's  army,  is 
victorious  at  the  battle  of  the 
Boyne,  289  ;  offers  free  pardon, 
290  ;  besieges  Limerick,  291  ; 
his  evidence  about  the  treaty  of 
Limerick,  296 

Willoughby,  Sir  Francis,  Governor 
of  Dublin,  246 

Winter,  Admiral,  187 

Wolfe,  Tone,  354  ;  leader  of 
United  Irishmen,  354 ;  meets 
Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald  in 
Paris,  355  ;  his  scheme  of  de- 
scent, 355  ;  descent  fails,  357  ; 
a  fresh  attempt,  358 ;  again 
fails,  361  ;  is  arrested  on  board 
the  Hoche,  361  ;  condemned 
and  dies  in  prison,  366 

Wood,  patentee  of  halfpence,  317 


Yellow  Ford,  battle  of  the,  203 
"Young  Ireland,"  party  of,  388, 
390 


The  Story  of  the   Nations. 


Messrs.  G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS  take  pleasure  in 
announcing  that  they  have  in  course  of  publication  a 
series  of  historical  studies,  intended  to  present  in  a 
graphic  manner  the  stories  of  the  different  nations  that 
have  attained  prominence  in  history. 

In  the  story  form  the  current  of  each  national  life  will 
be  distinctly  indicated,  and  its  picturesque  and  noteworthy 
periods  and  episodes  will  be  presented  for  the  reader  in 
their  philosophical  relation  to  each  other*'as  well  as  to 
universal  history. 

It  is  the  plan  of  the  writers  of  the  different  volumes  to 
enter  into  the  real  life  of  the  peoples,  and  to  bring  them 
before  the  reader  as  they  actually  lived,  labored,  and 
struggled — as  they  studied  and  wrote,  and  as  they  amused 
themselves.  In  carrying  out  this  plan,  the  myths,  with 
which  the  history  of  all  lands  begins,  will  not  be  over- 
looked, though  these  will  be  carefully  distinguished  from 
the  actual  history,  so  far  as  the  labors  of  the  accepted 
historical  authorities  have  resulted  in  definite  conclusions. 

The  subjects  of  the  different  volumes  will  be  planned 
to  cover  connecting  and,  as  far  as  possible,  consecutive 
epochs  or  periods,  so  that  the  set  when  completed  will 
present  in  a  comprehensive  narrative  the  chief  events  in 
the  great  Story  OF  THE  NATIONS ;  but  it  will,  of  course 


not  always  prove  practicable  to  issue  the  several  volumes 
in  their  chronological  order. 

The  ''Stories"  are  printed  in  good  readable  type,  and 
in  handsome  i2moform.  They  are  adequately  illustrated 
and  furnished  with  maps  and  indexes.  They  are  sold 
separately  at  a  price  of  $1.50  each. 

The  following  is  a  partial  list  of  the  subjects  thus  far 

determined  upon  : 

THE  STORY  OF  *ANCIENT  EGYPT.     Prof.  George  Rawlinson. 

"  *CHALDEA.     Z.  A.  Ragozin. 

"  *GREECE.     Prof.  James  A.  Harrison, 

Washington  and  Lee  University. 

"  *ROME.     Arthur  Oilman. 

"  *THE  JEWS.     Prof.  James  K.  Hosmer, 

Washington  University  of  St.  Louis. 

"  *CARTHAGE.     Prof.  Alfred  J.  Church, 

University  College,  London. 

"  BYZANTIUM. 

"  THE  GOTHS.     Henry  Bradley. 

"  *THE  NORMANS.     Sarah  O.  Jewett. 

"  ^PERSIA.     S.  G.  W.  Benjamin. 

"  *SPAIN.     Rev.  E.  E.  and  Susan  Hale. 

"  *GERMANY.     S.  Baring  Gould. 

"  THE  ITALIAN  REPUBLICS. 

"  HOLLAND.     Prof.  C.  E.  Thorold  Rogers. 

"  *N0RWAY.     Hjalmar  H.  Boyesen. 

"  *THE  MOORS  IN  SPAIN.    Stanley  Lane-Poole. 

"  *HUNGARY.     Prof.  A.  VAmbery. 

"  THE  ITALIAN  KINGDOM.     W.  L.  Alden. 

"  "  EARLY  FRANCE.     Prof.  Gustave  Masson. 

"  *ALEXANDER'S  EMPIRE.  Prof.  J.  P.  Mahaffy. 

"  THE  HANSE  TOWNS.     Helen  Zimmern. 

"  *ASSYRIA.     Z.  A.  Ragozin. 

"  *THE  SARACENS.     Arthur  Oilman. 

"  "  TURKEY,     Stanley  Lane-Poole. 

•'  PORTUGAL.     H.  Morse  Stephens. 

"  MEXICO.     Susan  Hale. 

"  *IRELAND.     Hon.  Emily  Lawless. 

"  PHCENICIA. 

"  SWITZERLAND. 

"  RUSSIA. 

"  WALES. 

"  SCOTLAND. 
*  (The  volumes  starred  are  now  ready,  December,  1887.) 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
New  York  London 

27  AND  29  West  Twenty-third  Street  27  King  William  Street,  Strand 


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